Banking and finance

Judgment has been handed down in the Court of First Instance of the DIFC by Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke.

Kirtanlal International DMCC, a steel trading company, brought a claim for damages of USD 18.51m in relation to what it said was the unlawful termination of its facility agreement with the Defendant bank. Kirtanlal claimed that the Bank acted in breach of a duty of good faith and/or a Braganza duty, alleging malice on the part of the Bank. Kirtanlal also alleged that there were breaches of tortious, fiduciary and regulatory duties by the Bank.

The Court rejected the $18.5 million damages claim.

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In a judgment handed down on 20 September 2023 following the trial of preliminary issues, the Deputy Judge of the Commercial Court held that it is not a rule of private international law that a final and binding foreign judgment on the merits must be enforceable in the foreign jurisdiction before it could be the subject of an application to ‘enforce’ the foreign judgment in this jurisdiction by a claim at common law, and dismissed the sixth defendant’s application to set aside a default judgment the claimant had obtained against the first defendant, as (i) there was accordingly no arguable defence, and (ii) the sixth defendant had not satisfied the Denton criteria.

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Successfully obtaining summary judgment in the defendants’ favour.

This judgment is be of especial interest to commercial lenders, particularly those operating in the realm of property and development finance.

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A US$1 Billion damages claim, which arose out of the collapse of NMC PLC, a former FTSE 100 company, and its operating subsidiaries in the UAE, all of which are now in administration in England and Wales and the UAE. The claimant is an Abu Dhabi-based bank, and the first to third defendants are the former private shareholders in NMC PLC. The Bank alleged that the defendants are responsible, with others, for a serious fraud that appears to have taken place within the NMC Group of companies. The defendants all deny involvement in the fraud.

One of The Lawyer’s ‘Top 20 Cases of 2022’: successfully acted for Mr Manoukian in obtaining an order for payment of international transfers from his bank accounts held with the defendants, who are two of the largest banks in Lebanon. Since the onset of the Lebanese economic crisis, Lebanese banks, including the defendants, have refused to make international transfers of the sums held with them in foreign currency by their customers.

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High value, multi-party appeal arising out of the Lehman Brothers’ collapse concerned with the ranking of different tranches of subordinated debt totalling several billions – important case on construction of subordinated debt.

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Acting for one of the successful defendants in his jurisdiction challenge  – a Libyan businessman against whom a claim had been brought by the Libyan Investment Authority alleging fraud and corruption in relation to transactions valued at US$200 million that it had entered into with Credit Suisse bank in 2008 and 2009.

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The repayment of €148m of Islamic finance provided by a Qatari bank to finance the redevelopment of the Place de l’Etoile in Luxembourg.

The leading case on the conflict between a bank’s contractual duties and its duties under POCA.

In proceedings in which the English Courts interpreted the Credit Institutions (Reorganisation and Winding up) Regulations 2004 concerning cross border cooperation on the liquidation of banks and the ability to counterclaim in proceedings.

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Acted for claimant in Privy Council appeal seeking restitution and damages for conversion of bill of exchange in decision which established limits of good faith challenge to change of position defence.

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