NEWS & INSIGHTS

What are you hiding?

In Wright v The unnamed person or persons responsible for the operation and publication of the Bitcoin.org website [2022] EWHC 2982 the court ruled that if the Defendant intended to contest the Claimant’s bill of costs, they were required to identify themselves to both the court and the Claimant. In order to actively engage in proceedings, parties were required to reveal their identities. If they were concerned about the publication of their identity, they may obtain a court order anonymising their name and address to restrict the identification’s breadth.

Costs Judge Rowley has ruled that in detailed assessment procedures, if the defendant chooses to contest the Claimant’s bill of costs, they must identify themselves to the court and the Claimant.

Despite the immediate context, this decision is of broader importance to people contemplating making a claim as “persons unknown,” since it implies that a party must identify their identity if they desire to actively engage in proceedings.

Claimant had won a default judgement against Defendant for infringing copyright in a literary work pertaining to bitcoin. The Defendant refused to disclose their identity and mailing address, thus both the substantive and assessment processes were filed against “persons unknown.”

The Defendant issued points of contention, and the Claimant responded. Claimant subsequently requested an order that, if Defendant did not divulge their identity to the court and Claimant within seven days, they would be prohibited from participating in the evaluation and their disputes would be dismissed.

The counsels for both sides were unable to uncover any reported instances in which unidentified parties participated actively in proceedings.

The judge emphasised that in order to comply with CPR 47, a party serving points of dispute was not required to submit their name and address. Nonetheless, the rules as a whole made it apparent that parties must identify themselves when they first become actively involved in proceedings. In addition, when granting Claimant’s request to serve Defendant outside the jurisdiction by alternative means, Mann J ordered that Defendant would be required to identify themselves if they responded to the substantive proceedings, indicating that active participation would have required self-identification.

Until identification, the Defendant was unable to assert that they had submitted to the court’s jurisdiction, and the court was unable to consider the Defendant’s reasons of contention. Claimant would be permitted to seek a default costs certificate since it was as if no points of contention had been served.

Defendant was granted permission to appeal, notwithstanding the obvious difficulty of appealing. Any appeal had to be filed within 21 days of judgement delivery, failing which the Defendant had 14 days to self-identify. Claimant could then seek a default costs certificate if neither an appeal nor identification had been filed.

The judge noted that a party concerned about the disclosure of their identity could request that their name and address be made anonymous. Although this would not prevent an opponent from discovering their identity, it would restrict the breadth of the identification.

NEWS & INSIGHTS

The cost of failure to tell the truth

In Goddard-Watts v. Goddard-Watts [2019] EWHC 3367 (Fam), the wife successfully appealed a financial remedy order made at the rehearing of her claims. Holman J determined that the husband intentionally and dishonestly failed to disclose the ongoing discussions for the sale of his company before the financial remedy proceedings concluded with a sealed order. He ordered that the wife’s claims be heard again.

The wife had successfully made a set aside application because of the husband’s fraudulent non-disclosure in 2015 

In 2017, Wife found out that Husband had again failed to make full disclosure, so she filed a second application to set aside the application. In October 2015, Husband would have gotten £65 million from an offer for his company. At the second hearing, Husband told the judge that the offer had been taken back because it was too good to be true. The judge agreed with the joint appraiser that the company was worth £16.14 million. In fact, there had been more general talks with the buyer both before and after the re-hearing. On November 22, 2016, with Husband’s knowledge, a specific proposal was made at a higher price than before. The buyer didn’t turn it down, but instead asked for more information.

Holman J found that there had been a dishonest failure to tell the truth. Husband knew that he had to tell the truth until the final order was signed, and he should have told the truth about the talks and proposal. At least by the time the judgement was made, Husband’s evidence was no longer correct. If the judge had known the truth, he would not have made the order when he did (Sharland v Sharland [2015] UKSC 60). Another hearing would have happened. Holman J wasn’t sure that the judge wouldn’t have made a very different order, but he did admit that it was possible that he wouldn’t have. Because of this, Sharland’s exception at paragraph 33 did not apply. There was a good chance that Wife would get a bigger award. The difference between £30 million and £100 million in net assets was huge. So, it was impossible to say that the judge would have just looked at the unreported assets that led to the re-hearing without making any other changes (Kingdon v Kingdon [2010] EWCA Civ 1251). Even though there might have been a deduction for the work Wife did after they split up, it’s not true that she wouldn’t have been given more, even though she might not have been. The order was thrown out, and a second hearing was ordered.