Spyridoula-Maria Armeniakou v James Alexander Scott Thomson

Where confidential asset information must be disclosed under an interim freezing order, a confidentiality club may include the receiving party’s existing solicitors and counsel unless there is evidence of a heightened risk of inadvertent disclosure. The court should take account of legal and professional obligations, the practical difficulties and additional costs of appointing a separate legal team, and the circumstances in which information-barriers authorities were decided. A challenge to the underlying order, including the scope of disclosure, may properly be left for the return hearing where immediate disclosure causes no material prejudice.

The defendant applied to vary an interim order made by HHJ Pelling KC on 12 August 2024. The order supported proceedings in Greece concerning a mediation agreement and froze assets in England and Wales up to £11 million. It also required disclosure of worldwide assets exceeding £5,000 and an affidavit containing that information.

The parties agreed that disclosure should be made through a confidentiality club. The dispute concerned whether the claimant’s existing English solicitors and counsel should be excluded, and whether disclosure should be limited to assets in England and Wales pending the return hearing. The central issues were the appropriate safeguards against inadvertent disclosure and whether the existing order should stand pending that hearing.

1. Confidentiality club membership. The defendant had identified no evidence of any heightened risk of inadvertent disclosure by the claimant’s existing legal team. The court was satisfied that the solicitors and counsel would comply with their legal and professional obligations and take appropriate steps to preserve confidentiality.
2. Application of Bolkiah. The court accepted the claimant’s analysis of Bolkiah v KPMG [1999] 2 AC 222. Lord Millett’s emphasis on information barriers arose in a materially different context, involving the same firm and forensic accounting advisers acting for both sides and a large number of people having access to the information. It did not justify excluding the claimant’s relatively small existing legal team in this case.
3. Worldwide disclosure. The court did not determine the defendant’s allegations of breach of the duty of full and frank disclosure or the ultimate appropriateness of the freezing order. Those issues could be advanced at the return hearing. Pending that hearing, the worldwide disclosure requirement remained in force because disclosure would cause no material prejudice to the defendant and the information might assist the court and any applications made at the return hearing.
4. The information was to be disclosed through a confidentiality club within the next 24 hours. The order stood, including its worldwide scope, pending the return hearing. Costs were reserved.

The judgment records that HHJ Pelling KC made the interim order on 12 August 2024 and transferred the proceedings to the general King’s Bench Division. The present judgment determined the defendant’s interim variation application pending the listed return hearing on 13 September 2024.