JD Classics, what have they been up to?
Discussion
The Priyy Council has not long ago ruled on a Chinese shareholder dispute. Two Chinese blokes owned a business together, holding the business through a BVI company, as is common amongst Chinese business types. The poorer of the two men made the richer of the two men feel that he had lost face at a meeting. Many years of BVI and Privy Council litigation have ensued. The poorer of the two men is now much, much, much poorer. The war continues.
I was once instructed by a magic circle law firm to litigate against a man who had offended his former business partner. The opponent had by this time run out of money and was a litigant in person, reduced to penury, and suffering from mental illness. After yet another win against the poor bloke, the Judge asked if my client insisted on yet another costs order.
Judge "Mr BV, will your client temper the wind to the shorn lamb?" (quoting a Psalm).
Me: "My Lord, may I take instructions?"
Judge "Please do."
(huddled conversation with instructing solicitor siting behind me)
"My Lord, I have my instructions. My client seeks an order for costs on the indemnity basis, for the reasons that I have already indicated."
Judge: "Very well, Mr BV. The Defendant shall pay the costs of the Plaintiff, to be assessed if not agreed, but on the standard basis. Good afternoon, Mr BV."
Usher: "All rise!"
I gave my wig and gown to my junior clerk, who had just arrived with his trolley to collect the boxes of papers, and went to get my instructing solicitor a drink in Daley's while he rang the client to report on the outcome. We did not feel great.
I was once instructed by a magic circle law firm to litigate against a man who had offended his former business partner. The opponent had by this time run out of money and was a litigant in person, reduced to penury, and suffering from mental illness. After yet another win against the poor bloke, the Judge asked if my client insisted on yet another costs order.
Judge "Mr BV, will your client temper the wind to the shorn lamb?" (quoting a Psalm).
Me: "My Lord, may I take instructions?"
Judge "Please do."
(huddled conversation with instructing solicitor siting behind me)
"My Lord, I have my instructions. My client seeks an order for costs on the indemnity basis, for the reasons that I have already indicated."
Judge: "Very well, Mr BV. The Defendant shall pay the costs of the Plaintiff, to be assessed if not agreed, but on the standard basis. Good afternoon, Mr BV."
Usher: "All rise!"
I gave my wig and gown to my junior clerk, who had just arrived with his trolley to collect the boxes of papers, and went to get my instructing solicitor a drink in Daley's while he rang the client to report on the outcome. We did not feel great.
silentbrown said:
Breadvan72 said:
Free tiny legal factoid: when you read the words "Tuke v Hood", say them in you head as "Tuke and Hood" . English lawyers write v, v, or versus, but do not say those things. I have no clue why! American lawyers says Tuke versus Hood.
"Kramer and Kramer" doesn't sound too compelling!Breadvan72 said:
That question has already been asked and answered a short distance above. Am I the only person on PH who usually reads a thread before I post in it?
Nope.I've mentioned this tendency elsewhere and got hammered for saying just that, people can't be expected to read before posting.
jsf said:
Breadvan72 said:
That question has already been asked and answered a short distance above. Am I the only person on PH who usually reads a thread before I post in it?
Nope.I've mentioned this tendency elsewhere and got hammered for saying just that, people can't be expected to read before posting.
Breadvan72 said:
The Priyy Council has not long ago ruled on a Chinese shareholder dispute. Two Chinese blokes owned a business together, holding the business through a BVI company, as is common amongst Chinese business types. The poorer of the two men made the richer of the two men feel that he had lost face at a meeting. Many years of BVI and Privy Council litigation have ensued. The poorer of the two men is now much, much, much poorer. The war continues.
I was once instructed by a magic circle law firm to litigate against a man who had offended his former business partner. The opponent had by this time run out of money and was a litigant in person, reduced to penury, and suffering from mental illness. After yet another win against the poor bloke, the Judge asked if my client insisted on yet another costs order.
Judge "Mr BV, will your client temper the wind to the shorn lamb?" (quoting a Psalm).
Me: "My Lord, may I take instructions?"
Judge "Please do."
(huddled conversation with instructing solicitor siting behind me)
"My Lord, I have my instructions. My client seeks an order for costs on the indemnity basis, for the reasons that I have already indicated."
Judge: "Very well, Mr BV. The Defendant shall pay the costs of the Plaintiff, to be assessed if not agreed, but on the standard basis. Good afternoon, Mr BV."
Usher: "All rise!"
I gave my wig and gown to my junior clerk, who had just arrived with his trolley to collect the boxes of papers, and went to get my instructing solicitor a drink in Daley's while he rang the client to report on the outcome. We did not feel great.
Let me guess. 'temper the wind to the shorn lamb' means costs on the low side, 'indemnity basis' means costs more than they might otherwise have been? But how are costs discretionary?I was once instructed by a magic circle law firm to litigate against a man who had offended his former business partner. The opponent had by this time run out of money and was a litigant in person, reduced to penury, and suffering from mental illness. After yet another win against the poor bloke, the Judge asked if my client insisted on yet another costs order.
Judge "Mr BV, will your client temper the wind to the shorn lamb?" (quoting a Psalm).
Me: "My Lord, may I take instructions?"
Judge "Please do."
(huddled conversation with instructing solicitor siting behind me)
"My Lord, I have my instructions. My client seeks an order for costs on the indemnity basis, for the reasons that I have already indicated."
Judge: "Very well, Mr BV. The Defendant shall pay the costs of the Plaintiff, to be assessed if not agreed, but on the standard basis. Good afternoon, Mr BV."
Usher: "All rise!"
I gave my wig and gown to my junior clerk, who had just arrived with his trolley to collect the boxes of papers, and went to get my instructing solicitor a drink in Daley's while he rang the client to report on the outcome. We did not feel great.
Car_Nut said:
jsf said:
Breadvan72 said:
That question has already been asked and answered a short distance above. Am I the only person on PH who usually reads a thread before I post in it?
Nope. I've mentioned this tendency elsewhere and got hammered for saying just that, people can't be expected to read before posting. Dr Jekyll said:
Let me guess. 'temper the wind to the shorn lamb' means costs on the low side, 'indemnity basis' means costs more than they might otherwise have been? But how are costs discretionary?
Costs are always in the discretion of the court, but in most cases the loser pays. Costs are assessed on the standard basis save in exceptional cases in which they are assessed on the indemnity basis, In the latter event, the receiving party obtains a higher percentage of the actual costs incurred than under the standard basis. In very broad summary, indemnity costs may be awarded where the losing party had a hopeless case, or where they conducted the case unreasonably.
Tempering the wind to the shorn lamb is a quotation from the King James Bible version of the Psalms of David (a collection of religious verses in the Old Testament, attributed to the first King of the Bronze Age Kingdom of Israel). The phrase means "to be merciful". The Judge was asking my client not to apply for costs at all.
Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 31st October 21:46
The barrister representing my ex wife in my divorce was a pompous clown (imagine Boris Johnsons twin brother, they were so alike, not just in looks and mannerisms)
As we filed out of court after one of the hearings, he tried to garner favour with the judge, and spoke to him directly, quoting Churchill, the old boy lifted his head and from the look in his eyes I was so sure he was about to say "why dont you just f
k off!" but instead just ignored him
I doubt it, as there is no more money to milk from the case, but hopefully he and his wife (my exes solicitor, they were both on the gravy train) are still monitoring my pistonheads posts and read this, yes they actually quoted some of them in court, but that's another funny story I have told elsewhere on here)
Not trying to disparage the legal profession by the way, there are muppets like these everywhere, luckily I have managed to avoid them in the main.
As we filed out of court after one of the hearings, he tried to garner favour with the judge, and spoke to him directly, quoting Churchill, the old boy lifted his head and from the look in his eyes I was so sure he was about to say "why dont you just f
k off!" but instead just ignored him I doubt it, as there is no more money to milk from the case, but hopefully he and his wife (my exes solicitor, they were both on the gravy train) are still monitoring my pistonheads posts and read this, yes they actually quoted some of them in court, but that's another funny story I have told elsewhere on here)
Not trying to disparage the legal profession by the way, there are muppets like these everywhere, luckily I have managed to avoid them in the main.
Nobody comes top in law school and says "I will specialise in family law". I have a pretty low opinion of many family lawyers. There are of course some good ones.
Barristers do have a tendency to be pompous. I am a barrister and I can be quite pompous sometimes. Most barristers are extroverts and/or egotists, because advocacy is a performance art, and litigation is a bruising psychological contact sport, but it does make some of us quite arsey, myself included.
Barristers do have a tendency to be pompous. I am a barrister and I can be quite pompous sometimes. Most barristers are extroverts and/or egotists, because advocacy is a performance art, and litigation is a bruising psychological contact sport, but it does make some of us quite arsey, myself included.
My favourite pen portrait of a barrister is this one from the excellent novel "The Eustace Diamonds" by Anthony Trollope (1873). Mr Dove reminds me of me and of a great many of my colleagues:-
Mr Dove's instructing attorney (solicitor) Mr Camperdown is beautifully sketched in a later chapter, where he and Mr Dove interact in a way that has not changed all that much since the 1870s.
http://www.online-literature.com/anthony-trollope/...
Anthony Trollope said:
Mr. Thomas Dove, familiarly known among club-men, attorneys' clerks, and, perhaps, even among judges when very far from their seats of judgment, as Turtle Dove, was a counsel learned in the law. He was a counsel so learned in the law, that there was no question within the limits of an attorney's capability of putting to him, that he could not answer with the aid of his books. And when he had once given an opinion, all Westminster could not move him from it,--nor could Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn and the Temple added to Westminster. When Mr. Dove had once been positive, no man on earth was more positive. It behoved him, therefore, to be right when he was positive; and though whether wrong or right he was equally stubborn, it must be acknowledged that he was seldom proved to be wrong. Consequently the attorneys believed in him, and he prospered. He was a thin man, over fifty years of age, very full of scorn and wrath, impatient of a fool, and thinking most men to be fools; afraid of nothing on earth,--and, so his enemies said, of nothing elsewhere; eaten up by conceit; fond of law, but fonder, perhaps, of dominion; soft as milk to those who acknowledged his power, but a tyrant to all who contested it; conscientious, thoughtful, sarcastic, bright-witted, and laborious. He was a man who never spared himself. If he had a case in hand, though the interest to himself in it was almost nothing, he would rob himself of rest for a week should a point arise which required such labour. It was the theory of Mr. Dove's life that he would never be beaten. Perhaps it was some fear in this respect that had kept him from Parliament and confined him to the courts and the company of attorneys. He was, in truth, a married man with a family; but they who knew him as the terror of opponents and as the divulger of legal opinions, heard nothing of his wife and children. He kept all such matters quite to himself, and was not given to much social intercourse with those among whom his work lay. Out at Streatham, where he lived, Mrs. Dove probably had her circle of acquaintance;--but Mr. Dove's domestic life and his forensic life were kept quite separate.
http://www.online-literature.com/anthony-trollope/eustace-diamonds/25/Mr Dove's instructing attorney (solicitor) Mr Camperdown is beautifully sketched in a later chapter, where he and Mr Dove interact in a way that has not changed all that much since the 1870s.
http://www.online-literature.com/anthony-trollope/...
I rather like Jerome K Jerome's (Uncle Podger's) comment on the 'price' of court action
" If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply."
(Three Men on The Bummel, Jerome k Jerome)
" If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply."
(Three Men on The Bummel, Jerome k Jerome)
Gulliver's Travels, Book III -
I said, “there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. For example, if my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that any man should be allowed to speak for himself. Now, in this case, I, who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages: first, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as one that would lessen the practice of the law. And therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is, to gain over my adversary’s lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuating that he hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary: and this, if it be skilfully done, will certainly bespeak the favour of the bench. Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.
“It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice, and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing accordingly.
“In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the cause; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose. For instance, in the case already mentioned; they never desire to know what claim or title my adversary has to my cow; but whether the said cow were red or black; her horns long or short; whether the field I graze her in be round or square; whether she was milked at home or abroad; what diseases she is subject to, and the like; after which they consult precedents, adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years, come to an issue.
“It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide, whether the field left me by my ancestors for six generations belongs to me, or to a stranger three hundred miles off.
“In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the method is much more short and commendable: the judge first sends to sound the disposition of those in power, after which he can easily hang or save a criminal, strictly preserving all due forms of law.”
I said, “there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. For example, if my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that any man should be allowed to speak for himself. Now, in this case, I, who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages: first, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as one that would lessen the practice of the law. And therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is, to gain over my adversary’s lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuating that he hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary: and this, if it be skilfully done, will certainly bespeak the favour of the bench. Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.
“It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice, and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing accordingly.
“In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the cause; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose. For instance, in the case already mentioned; they never desire to know what claim or title my adversary has to my cow; but whether the said cow were red or black; her horns long or short; whether the field I graze her in be round or square; whether she was milked at home or abroad; what diseases she is subject to, and the like; after which they consult precedents, adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years, come to an issue.
“It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide, whether the field left me by my ancestors for six generations belongs to me, or to a stranger three hundred miles off.
“In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the method is much more short and commendable: the judge first sends to sound the disposition of those in power, after which he can easily hang or save a criminal, strictly preserving all due forms of law.”
Dickens on the as yet unreformed Court of Chancery in the 1830s -
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"
This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"
Burwood said:
This. It’s a lot more than 38m. It’s 10’s of millions in earnings he dragged out of the company before the sale. Whether correct or not the Times put his wealth at 100m. It will in various trusts and under his wife’s control. It should be broken apart and everyone paid. Hood is a crook and a liar.
If you read the report of the bankruptcy hearing, Hood resisted on the basis that he had assets sufficient to pay HMRC but they were claimed not to be liquid.Edited by Burwood on Saturday 31st October 15:41
I too would expect there will be a lot of money left over from the reported sums paid by Charme for JD Classics and that which has accrued over the years in profits. However, on the accrued profits, if you look at the 2012 accounts filed, there was a personal guarantee from Hood to the bank for £7.2m (presumably backed by some kind of assets) and a profit of circa £5m. Similar profits for 2013. Yet, bank borrowings remained more or less the same in 2013 as 2012 in spite of the booking of £5m profits, and very modest dividends were drawn.
How the underlying performance would have been with the Tuke profits stripped out might also be a different story. I wonder (and this is just my view) whether modest dividends drawn against a backdrop of booking large profits was a consequence of an attempt to create an illusion of a profitable company attractive to a buyer without actually being that profitable. That correlates with the number of reportedly fraudulent transactions referred to by the auditors.
Anyhow there is reportedly a freezing injunction so Hood would normally have to provide the court with a statement detailing his assets. How truthful that would be I have no idea. With £12m odd awarded to Tuke and Charme pursing for a reported £64m if that succeeds then I suspect based on what I read in the judgement it will become a game of "hunt the cash". Normally there might well be a race to get to a decision first but if there is a bankruptcy then I guess they will all have to share whatever can be collected.
Pretty messy.
Gassing Station | Classic Cars and Yesterday's Heroes | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff