Caroline advised a mainland China corporate client trying to recover a substantial sum of money owed by an English company. The client’s paperwork, as the trading relationship had gone back for several years, was substantial and in disarray. Caroline initially advised with the help of a forensic accountant what part of the claim we could successfully substantiate by doing an accounting procedure.
The client had already tried to resolve the dispute themselves prior to instructing us and unfortunately the wording of the agreement was sufficiently ambiguous to give the potential Defendant room for argument with the figures. Eventually, after much consideration, Caroline advised the client of the best claim to which the Defendant would have the least defence.
The claim was issued and strenuously defended by the Defendants who raised all sorts of arguments as to why they should not have to pay the client, and in particular issuing a Counterclaim which extinguished the value of the claim. On the face of it the Counterclaim seemed genuine, but the fact that it conveniently extinguished the claim made Caroline suspicious.
Accordingly we paid a lot of attention to the disclosure process whereby the parties exchanged documents. Unsurprisingly as it transpired the Defendants failed to disclose the documents pertaining to the Counterclaim and eventually we had to seek orders to get them produced.
When they did produce them on the face of it they appeared to give credence to the Counterclaim but we made investigations as to the identity of the various European companies identified in the Counterclaim either by ourselves or through European Company search agents and process servers.
Eventually we discovered that the Counterclaim was entirely fictitious. The company from where the breach of contract claim giving rise to the Counterclaim was supposed to emanate from did not even exist.
In uncovering this and notifying the Defendant’s Solicitors that we intended to knock out their Counterclaim and seek judgment it became apparent that the “shadow” director who had responsibility for giving instructions in this matter to the solicitor had committed a wider fraud. Unfortunately it transpired that the Defendant’s company was insolvent. We obtained a Judgment for the full amount of the claim and costs on behalf of the Claimant.
Whilst unfortunately to date there have been insufficient funds in the Defendant company to pay the Claimant, through proper analysis we knocked out the Defence and their Counterclaim, and obtained a full Judgment and saved the clients the cost of going to trial (which obviously would have been very expensive) and discovering the position after all the costs for the trial had been spent.
Caroline acted for a security company who provided guarding services to an individual’s property. Unfortunately whilst they were on site there was a burglary. The home owner was uninsured for a substantial amount of jewellery that was stolen, and claimed that the security company had been negligent in their guarding of the property. Police investigation into the robbery had been inconclusive and nobody had been detained nor had any of the goods been recovered. It seemed on analysis of the facts as if a member of the householder’s staff must have been involved in the robbery, and therefore the security company and the measures that they had on site could not have either prevented it or alerted them to it.
The property had been undergoing substantial restoration at the time and we eventually traced the site foreman who worked for the building company who was able to give invaluable evidence in a witness statement form, which indicated to us that we had a good chance of defending the claim. Our client’s insurers agreed that the evidence was strong and that they would back the client to go through a trial.
A week before the trial the home owner decided not to pursue their claim for their losses and an agreement was reached as the cost of the proceedings.
Accordingly going through judicious investigation the case settled before trial so the client did not have the costs and of the trial nor the risk of trial and successfully deflected the claim. The client also managed to avoid unfortunate publicity.
Caroline Gibbs acted for a girlfriend of a deceased gentleman who died leaving a very “old” will that did not reflect his present living circumstances. According to the will he left (which he made when his children by his first marriage were young teenagers) they inherited his entire estate. This did not reflect the fact that he had been divorced from their mother at the time he made the will, and the beneficiaries were now young adults in full time employment, and he had for in excess of 10 years cohabited with the girlfriend. In addition the girlfriend ran her business from the home which she had set up with the deceased.
The two children did not accept that the girlfriend had a claim on the estate. The girlfriend brought an Inheritance Act claim for provision as a dependent of the deceased and at the same we had to make representations to the deceased’s Pension Fund for the lump sum and annuity that was going to be paid out under the pension. The case proceeded to Court because the children were in denial about their father’s relationship with his girlfriend, and the children wished for the matter to go to a full trial which would obviously deplete the estate to nobody’s benefit.
Eventually the Pension Fund decided in favour of the girlfriend and essentially forced the hands of the deceased’s children. However, because of the children’s conduct of the matter we were also successful in not only recovering the girlfriend’s share of the Pension Fund and the estate but also of her costs. It was a difficult case because of the heightened emotions and the fact our client had recently been bereaved and the sheer intransigence of the defendants.