Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd v Director of the Serious Fraud Office
23 Jan 2025
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For reasons given in a judgment handed down on 23 January 2025, Mr Justice Waksman has refused permission to the claimant, ENRC, to make amendments to its claims with a stated value of c. US $120 million.
At two previous trials, Mr Justice Waksman found that Neil Gerrard (ENRC’s former solicitor), Dechert LLP (his firm at the time) and the SFO were liable to ENRC for wrongdoing which had caused the SFO to open a criminal investigation into ENRC. An 18-day quantum trial has provisionally been listed to begin in April 2026.
ENRC applied for permission to amend its claim to include the alleged diminution in the value of certain subsidiaries due to increased costs of borrowing they were said to have experienced in consequence of the criminal investigation. Mr Justice Waksman dismissed the application. Although he accepted that the amendments were properly arguable, he held that they were late, there was no good reason for the lateness, and the defendants would be prejudiced by ENRC’s failure to put in place a litigation hold over its subsidiaries’ documents.
Tom Richards KC and George Molyneaux acted for the Director of the SFO.
