Navigator Equities LTD & Anor. v Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska

An adjournment must be granted where refusing it would infringe the defendant’s right to a fair trial, unless any resulting injustice to the other party cannot be adequately compensated. The right to counsel of choice is an important component of a fair trial, but it is not autonomous or absolute. It may yield where relevant and sufficient grounds justify replacement and competent alternative representation can be arranged without imperilling fairness. In assessing the application, the court may consider the history of earlier adjournments, the availability of replacement counsel, preparation time, funding, the scope of the hearing and prejudice to other court users. A speculative or unsupported assertion that the listed hearing cannot be completed within the time estimate does not require an adjournment.

The claimants sought an adjournment of committal proceedings concerning alleged breaches of undertakings given in lieu of a worldwide freezing order. The trial had already been adjourned several times, including because sanctions prevented the defendant’s legal representatives from being paid. A special licence was eventually granted, but the defendant’s preferred leading and senior junior counsel were unavailable for the listed three-day trial.

The defendant also argued that the hearing could not fairly be completed in three days. The central questions were whether proceeding without the preferred counsel would imperil a fair trial and whether the time estimate was inadequate.

1. Application dismissed. The court exercised its adjournment discretion under the overriding objective, including the need to place parties on an equal footing and to provide a reasonable opportunity to present their cases without substantial disadvantage. The relevant principles were drawn from Khudados v Hayden [2007] EWCA Civ 1316, Bilta (UK) v Tradition Financial Services Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 221 and Teinaz v Wandsworth London BC [2002] IRLR 721.
2. The right to counsel of choice formed part of the fair-trial guarantee under Article 6, but was not a free-standing or absolute right. Relevant and sufficient grounds could justify overriding the defendant’s preference where the fairness of the trial would not thereby be imperilled. The court relied particularly on Re Maguire [2018] 1 WLR 1412 and the European authorities discussed there.
3. Those grounds existed. The trial date had been fixed for a considerable period, the Court of Appeal had urged prompt determination, and the defendant’s team had opportunities to raise availability difficulties earlier. Six weeks remained before trial. The evidence was substantially complete, the committal hearing had previously been prepared, an existing junior member of the team was available, and a substantial licence budget had been obtained. Competent replacement counsel could therefore prepare adequately.
4. The three-day estimate was also adequate. The scope of the committal hearing had narrowed materially since the earlier proceedings. Cross-examination was expected to be limited, and the defendant did not identify with sufficient clarity why the estimate could not accommodate the issues. Any necessary time control could operate against the claimants, who bore the burden of proof.
5. The court declined to infer that the defendant had deliberately been gaming the system, although the conduct of the matter had not positively promoted expedition. Nor did uncertainty concerning the names in the newly granted licence justify an adjournment. The refusal to adjourn did not raise any concern about the fairness of the forthcoming trial.

The judgment records earlier procedural decisions in the same litigation, including an appeal concerning the committal proceedings: Court of Appeal judgment of 6 February 2020, [2020] EWCA Civ 109, and a later appeal concerning the earlier strike-out decision, reported at [2022] 1 WLR 3656. This judgment concerned a subsequent application to adjourn the relisted trial.