Pump Court Chambers Ltd v Gillian Brown (also known as Gillian Goodfield)

The general rule is that court hearings take place in public. A private hearing is justified only where publicity would make it impossible, or materially impair the ability, to secure the proper administration of justice or achieve the object of the hearing. Administrative inconvenience, financial pressure, reputational harm and the desirability of communicating a fuller account later do not suffice. A risk that publicity may alert third parties to tracing proceedings can in principle justify privacy, but the risk must make privacy necessary in the particular case. The same necessity-based approach applies to anonymity orders. Privacy and anonymity granted at an without-notice stage may cease to be justified once the proceedings are contested and the relevant risk has reduced.

The claimant company sought to continue proprietary and freezing injunctions and obtain further disclosure orders against its former credit control manager, who admitted taking approximately £2.75 million. The injunctions had initially been granted without notice in private and with anonymity. At the inter partes hearing, the claimant sought continuation of the private hearing and anonymity order, relying on disruption to the chambers’ business, possible payment delays, reputational consequences and a tipping-off risk affecting asset tracing. The central issues were whether the statutory conditions for a private hearing and anonymity under CPR 39.2 were met.

1. Disposition. The court continued the proprietary and freezing injunctions and made further disclosure orders. It refused to order that the matter be heard in private and declined to continue the anonymity order.

2. Open justice. CPR 39.2(3) provides limited exceptions to the general rule that hearings are public. The burden lies on the party seeking privacy to establish necessity. The question is one of principle and necessity, rather than convenience. The need to devote scarce resources to dealing with publicity, possible disruption to the chambers, possible claims by former members, and possible delays by debtors did not justify departing from open justice.

3. The object of the hearing was to determine entitlement to injunctions and disclosure orders, not to protect the commercial integrity of the chambers. Publicity would not prevent those orders from operating. The court applied the principles stated in Scott v Scott [1913] AC 417 and the broad open-justice principle described in Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring [2019] UKSC 38.

4. A tipping-off risk may, in principle, justify a private hearing where publicity would prejudice tracing by alerting a wrongdoer or those acting in concert with them. On the facts, however, privacy was not necessary. The relevant injunctions had already been made several weeks earlier, so any persons seeking to conceal or dissipate assets had already had an opportunity to do so.

5. Under CPR 39.2(4), anonymity is available only where non-disclosure is necessary both to secure the proper administration of justice and to protect the interests of the person concerned. Those conditions were not met. The earlier without-notice anonymity order had been appropriate at that stage, but the defendant’s admissions and the changed procedural circumstances meant that continuation was unnecessary.

Not stated in the judgment.