19 novembre 2025
Disputes Quick Read – 1 de 104 Publications
We usually (try to) write notes about interesting new legal cases or, on a particularly racy day, legislation. This piece is neither. But it's an amazing story.
What should a court do when an apparently strong, perhaps unanswerable, claim in fraud relies on knowledge obtained by (thoroughly) unethical means?
This was the difficult question posed to Deputy High Court Judge Stephen Houseman KC in Salinas Pliego v Astor Asset Management 3 Ltd [2025] EWHC 2968 (Comm), a recent Commercial Court decision that reads more like a spy thriller than a typical fraud case.
The case involves allegations that Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego and his company were deceived into concluding a Stock Loan Agreement in July 2021. It was alleged that Mr Salinas was fraudulently induced to transfer shares in Elektra (a Mexican company) as collateral, which were then misappropriated by the defendant, Vladimir Sklarov. Sklarov had gained notoriety for perpetrating similar 'stock-lending frauds' in the past. The judge noted there was a good and perhaps strongly arguable case that the fraud claim would succeed at trial. So far, so good.
But the fraud allegations became secondary to what happened next. In August 2024, a company associated with the claimants retained BC Strategy, a business intelligence firm, to support the litigation. BC Strategy boasted "a select group of veterans of elite units in the Israeli intelligence community, combined with financial and legal experts".
The engagement agreement outlined BC Strategy's methodology: they would identify "Human Targets" to approach and extract intelligence, create "elaborate, personalized cover stories" for each target, and deploy "field agents" and "operatives" to build relationships and extract relevant information. The claimants refused to disclose how much BC Strategy was paid.
BC Strategy's 'human target' turned out to be the defendants' litigation solicitor. They lured him into meeting on the false premise that he was pitching for a potential new client, then secretly filmed and recorded the meetings; all the while extracting information about the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the defendants' position, including litigation and settlement strategy. There were three meetings — one virtual and two in person abroad over lunch and dinner with alcohol — totalling about 6.5 hours, during which the solicitor was "skilfully and tenaciously steered" into discussing confidential aspects of his clients' case.
The operative persistently led the solicitor with questions designed to pressure him into privileged territory, and was clearly "very well briefed about the issues in these proceedings". The solicitor was duly lulled into false confidence, sharing personal and privileged information, hoping to win a major new client as a newly-promoted partner. In the defendants' words, the claimants intended BC Strategy to go "privilege hunting".
The claimants accepted the methods were unethical but denied responsibility for the use of such methods (blaming BC Strategy), claimed they gained no unfair advantage, and argued it would be disproportionate to strike out their claim when the defendant had committed significant fraud.
The judge decided that the claimants intended or expected BC Strategy to engage in precisely this kind of unethical conduct, noting there was no evidence they were shocked to receive the fruits of the covert operation. On the contrary, they sought to use it in their summary judgment application.
He held that targeting an adversary's solicitor to extract sensitive information "is anathema to the norms and values of civil litigation" and "offends justice", constituting an abuse of process regardless of whether the information obtained was actually privileged.
Yet the judge did not strike out the entire claim, finding this would be disproportionate where there was a decent prospect of success on the fraud claim and a policy in favour of exposing serious wrongdoing. Instead, he struck out the summary judgment application and indicated the claimants would pay costs on an indemnity basis.
The judge adjourned key issues to a future 'Information Review Hearing' to determine the precise evidential status of the illicitly obtained information and whether the claimants' possession of it creates a substantial risk of an unfair trial – leaving open the possibility of more severe sanctions including striking out the entire claim.
The judge granted permission to appeal, noting "the interplay between competing policies deserves appellate attention", and candidly observed he may have been "too lenient" on the claimants. So, we may hear this story again. The takeaway is an obvious one. Be careful using 'operatives'. They can ruin a perfectly good case.
21 octobre 2025
par plusieurs auteurs
11 juin 2025
par Ryan Ferry, Edwina Kelly
30 janvier 2025
par Katie Chandler
22 janvier 2025
par plusieurs auteurs
6 décembre 2024
14 novembre 2024
par Tim Strong, Kate Hamblin
14 novembre 2024
par Emma Allen
30 octobre 2024
par plusieurs auteurs
15 octobre 2024
par Emma Allen, Andrew Spencer
5 juillet 2024
par Stuart Broom, Tom Charnley
21 mars 2024
par Emma Allen, Amy Cheng
1 février 2024
par Katie Chandler, Emma Allen
12 février 2024
par Tim Strong, Nicole Baldev
14 décembre 2023
13 décembre 2023
17 octobre 2023
par Katie Chandler
4 août 2023
par plusieurs auteurs
21 juillet 2023
10 juillet 2023
par Katie Chandler
1 juin 2023
par plusieurs auteurs
3 mai 2023
par James Bryden
20 avril 2023
par James Bryden
5 avril 2023
par Tom Charnley
8 mars 2023
2 mars 2023
par Katie Chandler, Emma Allen
14 février 2023
13 février 2023
8 février 2023
par Jessie Prynne
19 janvier 2023
par Georgina Jones
3 octobre 2022
par Gemma Broughall
22 septembre 2022
par Emma Allen
9 août 2022
par Nick Maday
25 juillet 2022
6 juillet 2022
par Emma Allen
Welcome news for those pursuing fraud claims in the English Courts
28 juillet 2022
par Emma Allen
27 juillet 2022
par Stuart Broom
29 juillet 2022
par Jess Thomas, Lucy Waddicor
17 juin 2022
par Stephanie High
13 juin 2022
26 mai 2022
31 mai 2022
par plusieurs auteurs
4 avril 2022
par Emma Allen
5 avril 2022
par Stephanie High
31 mars 2022
par plusieurs auteurs
21 septembre 2021
par Matthew Caskie
13 septembre 2021
6 septembre 2021
par Stephanie High
2 août 2021
21 juillet 2021
15 juillet 2021
par Jess Thomas
26 mai 2021
par David de Ferrars
5 mai 2021
par Stephen O'Grady
21 avril 2021
par Stephanie High
31 mars 2021
26 février 2021
par Tim Strong
24 février 2021
20 janvier 2021
par Stephanie High
12 janvier 2021
par Tim Strong
23 novembre 2020
16 octobre 2020
23 septembre 2020
par Stuart Broom
7 octobre 2020
par Nick Storrs
18 mai 2020
par Katie Chandler
9 avril 2020
par plusieurs auteurs
15 avril 2020
27 avril 2020
21 avril 2020
par Stephanie High
11 mars 2020
par James Bryden
17 mars 2020
par Stuart Broom
26 février 2020
par Tim Strong, Andrew Howell
21 février 2020
par Andrew Howell
2 juin 2020
par Georgina Jones
16 juin 2020
par Georgina Jones
2 juillet 2020
par Tim Strong, Georgina Jones
9 juillet 2020
21 juillet 2020
3 décembre 2021
24 novembre 2021
par Stuart Broom
8 octobre 2021
par Katie Chandler
10 janvier 2022
par Tim Strong, Jess Thomas
20 janvier 2022
par Natalia Faekova
8 mars 2022
par Jess Thomas, Lucy Waddicor
22 mars 2022
par Stuart Broom
7 avril 2022
par Emma Allen, Georgina Jones