Kate’s casebook: six cases to watch this year – The Lawyer

Last year was dominated by some major credit crunch litigation, with cases concerning compensation to Northern Rock shareholders taking centre stage.

This year, banking battles are still big business for London’s litigators, for example the Royal Bank of Scotland investors’ claim against a 2008 £12bn rights issue coming to a head.

Elsewhere the conspiracy allegations surrounding former Bahraini bank executive Majed Al Refai continue to swirl, with Addleshaw Goddard partner Mark Hastings taking on the case. It is the latest high-profile dispute for the partner, who represented the late Boris Berezovksy in his mammoth battle with Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.

Meanwhile, the private healthcare kickback against the new regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority is keeping Monckton Chambers’ barristers occupied and will prove a major fight in 2015.

Here are some of the key cases to keep an eye on…

Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company and Bank Alkhair BSC v Al Refai, Kroll Associates UK Ltd, Alex Richardson and FTI Consulting Group Ltd

This $1bn conspiracy battle waged between Saudi-based property development company Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Development Company (DARR) and former bank chief executive Al Refai is set to be one of the largest to hit the courts in 2015.

It was due to be heard in 2014 and has been split over two phases in order to break down and deal with the slew of allegations made, which include computer hacking and theft of information.

The fight began in 2010 when Majed Al Refai, a senior executive of Bahraini investment bank Bank Alkhair, was dismissed following the alleged discovery of money laundering.

The claimants launched claims of $1bn against the banker, accusing him of conspiring with the other defendants to extort money from the claimants.

DARR and Bank Alkhair argue that Al Refai, chartered accountant Kroll Associates and FTI Consulting Group attempted to ruin the bank’s commercial relationships.

They claim that, among other things, the defendants were spreading damaging rumours in meetings with investors and ratings agencies and published damaging and untrue allegations about the claimants in an email circulated to analysts.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing.

Trustees Of The Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme Ltd & Ors v the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc / John Greenwood & Ors v Frederick Goodwin & Ors

This £4bn fight brought by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shareholders over a 2008 £12bn rights issue has swelled to a battle involving four groups of investors lining up against the bank.

A group of claimants, which include pension scheme trustees, local authorities and investment funds, filed a High Court claim in March last year, alleging that the prospectus for RBS’s April 2008 rights issue was defective and contained “material mis-statements and omissions”.

They are also claiming the prospectus portrayed the bank as being in good financial health but the reality was different and the take-up of shares would have been limited “had the truth been known”.

Since Stewarts Law brought the first claim against the bank in 2013, the claims have swelled and the groups of claimants have grown from two to four.

Bird & Bird, Stewarts Law, Quinn Emanuel and Leon Kaye are now all representing groups of claimants. Stewarts Law’s group alone has expanded from 80 to 313 instutional investors and pension funds.

The case is one of the first to be brought under section 90 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, and if it is fought all the way could set important case law.

Barclays Bank Plc v Lester Charles Landgraf, Londell McMillan and Elias Farrah

The 2012 collapse of law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf was one of the most dramatic to hit the profession and this case concerning partner debts has been watched closely by the profession.

Barclays has been pursuing more than 100 of the firm’s former partners for repayment of loans it granted them before Dewey’s collapse. It has issued proceedings against 50 of those partners, including Lester Charles Landgraf and Londel McMillan.

Now three former Dewey & LeBoeuf partners have joined together against Barclays in an attempt to prove that the bank and defunct firm induced them to take on individual debts to keep Dewey afloat.

Apex Global Management Ltd v FI Call Ltd, Global Torch Ltd, HRH Prince Abdulaziz Bin Mishal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Emad Mahmoud Ahmed Abu-Ayshih and HRH Prince Mishal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud 

This case concerns two Saudi princes, allegations of money laundering for Hezbollah and a disputed signature.

HRH Prince Abdulaziz Bin Mishal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has so far lost the fights to have his case against fellow investor Faisal Almhairat’s company Apex Global
Management heard in private and cited sovereign immunity to avoid complying with court orders (15 January 2014).

Now the prince has been given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The October battle will centre on whether the prince will have to comply with a series of orders made by Mr Justice Vos, Mr Justice Norris and Mr Justice Mann last year.

The prince has refused to sign a witness statement due to his royal status and failed to pay $7.7m to the other side, resulting in his defence being struck out last year.

He will fight the multiple orders on 13 October.

Sabre Oil & Gas v Standard Bank Plc

This is a multimillion-pound claim arising out of the sale of an oil company investing in the Jubilee offshore oil field in Ghana.

The field was discovered in 2007 and commercial pumping began three years later.

PetroSA, South Africa’s national oil company, purchased Sabre Oil & Gas Holdings in 2012, giving the company a stake in the oil field. PetroSA also bought out Sabre’s interest in the Deepwater Tano and Ghana’s West Cape Three Points blocks.

The deal has proved contentious, with PetroSA hit with corruption allegations and put under investigation by the country’s anti-corruption police unit.

The case is listed for 3rd June 2015 for five weeks in the Commercial Court.

AXA & Others v Competition & Markets Authority (CMA)

This case constitutes the first substantive challenge to the newly formed Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) decision regarding the UK’s private healthcare market.

The CMA decided the various players needed to divest assets to ensure fair competition.

It follows a two-year investigation by a group of independent panel members at the Competition Commission (CC), which became part of the new CMA.

Measures included a crackdown on benefits and incentive schemes provided to referring clinicians by private hospital operators and measures to increase the availability of information to patients on private fees and hospital performance.

The new regulator argued that many private hospitals faced little competition in local areas across the UK and there were high barriers to entry.

It concluded this led to higher prices for self-pay patients in many local areas – and for both self-pay and insured patients in Central London, where HCA, a for-profit operator of healthcare facilities that owns more than half of the available overnight bed capacity, charges significantly higher prices to insured patients than its closest competitor.

The case is listed for a two-week trial from 19th January.