Exsus Travel Ltd & Ors v Turner & Anor
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE JACKSON
- LORD JUSTICE McCOMBE
- LADY JUSTICE GLOSTER
Areas of Law
- Civil Procedure
- Evidence Law
- Equity and Trusts
- Contract Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involves an appeal by Exsus Travel Limited (ET) and others against a decision requiring them to pay balances determined through an account-taking process to Mr. James Turner and Exsus Finance Limited (EF). Turner, formerly a finance director at ET, and EF, were accused of misapplying funds and poor record-keeping. The court ultimately upheld the decision of the Master who oversaw the account-taking, finding no errors in legal principles applied or factual determinations made. The case also involved disclosure issues and whether the parties handled evidence and financial records appropriately.
Judgment
Lord Justice McCombe:
Introduction
This is an appeal by the Appellants, Exsus Travel Limited (“ET”) and others, from the order of Deputy Master Clark (“the Master”) of 24 September 2013 made on the taking of accounts between the parties, directed by the order of Master Bowles of 22 July 2010. By her order the Master ordered that the Appellant pay to the Respondents, Mr James Turner and Exsus Finance Limited (“EF”) £2,975.76, being the balance overall that she found to be due from the Appellants to the Respondents on the taking of the accounts, together with costs and an interim payment, on account of those costs, of £215,000.
The appeal was brought originally, on five grounds, with permission granted on grounds 1, 2 and 4 by Lewison LJ on 31 October 2013, and on grounds 3 and (to a limited extent) on ground 5 by Kitchin LJ on 1 May 2014. The grant of permission on ground 1 was given expressly without prejudice to any argument that the order, upon which that ground was based, had been made at the beginning of the trial on 12 June 2012 (and not on 24 September 2013, the date of the final order) and therefore required an extension of time for the application for permission to appeal. Any such application for an extension was adjourned, by Kitchin LJ’s order, to the hearing of the appeal. Kitchin LJ’s order limited the permission to appeal on ground 5 to certain specific points made in the Appellants’ skeleton arguments before him. That skeleton argument has been replaced by an updated document. Therefore, I have been unable to see precisely what the limitation was. However, it has not been contended by the Respondents that any of the arguments before us ranged beyond the scope of the permission granted.
For reasons which are no longer necessary to explore or explain in any detail, at the opening of the appeal, Mr Alexander QC (with whom Mr Robins appeared) for the Appellants acknowledged that he was unable to pursue ground 1 before us. That ground raised an argument that the Appellants were entitled to surcharge the Respondents on their account or accounts in a sum of £1.3 million. It was submitted that the Master had erred “by placing an arbitrary and unprincipled limit on the scope of the account”. As that ground of appeal has been abandoned, I say little more about it, save that the matter will have to be borne in mind on questions of costs.
The appeal was, therefore, advanced on the four remaining grounds, to the details of which I will ret