Choudhrie v Choudhrie

A claim seeking declaratory relief concerning an equitable duty of confidence should proceed only where there is a real, clear and crystallised dispute capable of resolution by declaration. The court must consider whether the declaration would serve a useful purpose and provide clarity or finality. A general, diffuse or contingent dispute will not suffice.

Where no meaningful declaration could properly be granted, the claim may disclose no reasonable grounds under CPR 3.4(2)(a). Its continuation may also constitute an abuse of process under Jameel v Dow Jones & Co Inc [2005] QB 946, because the cost and burden of the proceedings would be disproportionate to any benefit.

The claimant sought declaratory relief against his estranged wife concerning alleged confidential information disclosed during their marriage, including information relating to an investigation, legal meetings and family business affairs. He alleged that she had failed to confirm the scope of the equitable duty of confidence owed to him.

No breach, damages, account of profits or injunction was claimed. The defendant applied to strike out the claim under CPR 3.4(2)(a) and (b), and opposed proposed amendments widening the pleaded categories of information. The central issues were whether there was a proper basis for declaratory relief, whether the October 2017 information was confidential, and whether continuation of the claim would be an abuse of process.

1. Strike out and amendment. The claim was struck out under CPR 3.4(2)(a) and (b), and permission to amend was refused.
2. Confidentiality. Applying the principles in Coco v A N Clark (Engineers) Ltd [1968] FSR 415, information must possess the necessary quality of confidence and must have been imparted in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence. The October 2017 information satisfied neither requirement on the evidence. It was not sufficiently confidential, and no reasonable person in the defendant’s position would have understood that it was imparted in confidence.
3. By contrast, the duty of confidence could extend to information concerning the claimant’s family, companies, business associates and related businesses. The person who confided the information could enforce the duty, even where the information also concerned another person. The information could also arguably have been imparted in circumstances imposing confidence where it was disclosed at family meetings attended by the defendant as the claimant’s wife.
4. Declaratory relief. The jurisdiction was discretionary. There had to be a real dispute between the parties, and the terms of the declaration had to be precise. The court had to consider justice to both parties, whether the declaration would serve a useful purpose, and any special reasons for or against granting it. A present cause of action was unnecessary, but a real and present dispute remained central.
5. The pleaded dispute was general, diffuse and contingent. The proposed declaration would not resolve matters definitively, give meaningful comfort or provide useful clarity. The absence of particularity fed into the lack of utility, but was not an independent strike-out ground.
6. Abuse of process. The absence of any realistic prospect of meaningful declaratory relief meant that continuation of the claim was disproportionate and abusive on Jameel principles. It was unnecessary to decide separately whether the claim also fell within the second category of misuse identified in Broxton v McClelland [1995] EMLR 485.
7. Permission to appeal was refused because the proposed appeal had no real prospect of success. The issues concerned the application of established principles to an intensely fact-sensitive case.

This was a first-instance strike-out decision. The judge refused permission to appeal, recording that any appeal to the Court of Appeal required that court’s permission and had to be brought within 21 days.