Man told he can't sue in other jurisdictions to find result to "his liking"

Sunday 29 October 2017

The Royal Court has issued an anti-suit injunction against a man, after he started legal proceedings in Dubai where he lives, to get a result more to his liking.

Earlier this year, Essam Abdulamir Hamadi Alfadhli Al Tamimi saw his claims upon Jersey-held shares quashed by the Bailiff who ruled that the trust owner was his wife, Rouzin Marwan Al Charmaa.

Although the man claimed the shares belonged to him and were simply ‘resting’ in her name, the court found that she did not hold them as nominee and that their funding had been by way of a gift by her husband. 

Following the couple's divorce on 6 January 2015, Mr Al Tamimi, a senior partner in Dubai, initiated a series of legal proceedings. He obtained a default judgment against two Jersey companies in the courts of Dubai, whist proceedings where still underway in Jersey, and this without the court knowing. Following the issue of the Jersey judgment on 15 February 2017,  the man sought to enforced the default judgments he had obtained. Although the companies set them aside in July, he continued the proceedings the parties cited in Dubai in England.  

Faced with proceedings in Dubai over an issue determined in Jersey, the parties issued a summons before the Royal Court to seek anti-suit injunctions. Advocate Olaf Blakeley argued that Mr Al Talimi "had invoked the jurisdiction of this (the Royal) Court by bringing proceedings against the defendant (his wife) in which the subject Jersey companies were made parties cited, proceedings which involved the court in hearing extensive evidence as to the beneficial ownership of the parties cited, an exercise which required consideration as to how the parties cited were funded."

Royal Court Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith, who was sitting with Jurats Paul Nicolle and Pamela Pitman considered that the husband was attempting "to resile [abandon from a course of action] from or undermine the judgment of this court, the result of which was not to his liking, by continuing with the proceedings in Dubai on the basis of loans which the Jersey Court have found were due by the company to the defendant, and not the plaintiff."

He added: "However, the prima facie case presented by the parties cited was sufficiently strong both on jurisdiction and on the merits and the conduct of the plaintiff was of sufficient concern to justify the grant of an interim anti-suit injunction, so that no further steps can be taken by the plaintiff in Dubai pending full argument before this court."

He therefore issued an anti-suit injunction preventing Mr Al Talimi from continuing the proceedings in Dubai and from initiating any similar proceedings in any jurisdiction other than Jersey.