Following a 13 week trial from April to July 2017, on 22 December 2017 Mr Justice Picken of the Commercial Court handed down Judgment in this very substantial commercial fraud dispute, in favour of the Claimants.
Daniel Saoul of 4 New Square was a member of the Claimants’ Counsel team.
The Claimants, a group of companies based in Kazakhstan, sued their former directors and shareholders for very substantial frauds perpetrated through complex schemes involving land purchases and construction projects. The trial involved factual evidence from numerous witnesses, as well as expert evidence in the fields of Kazakh law, forensic accountancy, audit, quantity surveying, real estate practice and land valuation.
The matter was commenced in August 2013, at which point worldwide freezing injunctions were obtained against the Defendants; it was then the subject of a number of heavily contested interlocutory applications and appeals to the Court of Appeal, before reaching trial in April 2017.
The Judgment runs to 313 pages, and makes important findings in favour of the Claimants.
