2007
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Court of Appeal addressed three related appeals arising from Kensington International Limited’s multi-jurisdictional enforcement campaign against the Republic of Congo. Kensington had obtained substantial Commercial Court judgments and sought to attach debts in Geneva allegedly owed by Vitol S.A., while the Vitol group traded oil with the Congo through Global Oil Trader Mauritius. In England, Gloster J granted a broad injunction to restrain the UK Vitol companies from making payments under specified oil transactions; Cresswell J maintained and clarified that order to prevent circumvention. Kensington later sought Norwich Pharmacal relief for specific cargoes (Ti Topaz and Oliva), which Field J granted despite prior removal of rolling disclosure. Gross J granted Norwich Pharmacal relief concerning alleged bribery, rejecting privilege claims under section 13 of the Fraud Act. The Court of Appeal held that section 25 CJJA supports foreign proceedings, debt recovery falls within “proceedings relating to property,” bribery is a related offence, peripheral materials did not create real self-incrimination risk, and all three appeals were dismissed.
Judgement
Lord Justice Moore-Bick :
The Appeals
Before the court are three appeals arising out of various proceedings brought by Kensington International Limited (“Kensington”) in support of its attempt to execute a number of judgments obtained in the Commercial Court against the Republic of Congo (“the Congo”). The first in time is an appeal against an order made by Cresswell J. on 26 th May 2006 dismissing an application by the first two appellants, Vitol Services Limited and Vitol Broking Limited, to discharge an order made by Gloster J. on 10 th April 2006 restraining them from making any payments to the Congo under or pursuant to contracts for the purchase of petroleum or petroleum products entered into between 1 st January and 10 th April 2006. For convenience I shall refer to Vitol Services Limited and Vitol Broking Limited as “the UK Vitol companies”. The injunction was granted under section 25 of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 in support of proceedings in Geneva by Kensington against Vitol S.A., the parent of the UK Vitol companies, seeking to attach in execution of the English judgments certain debts alleged to be owed by it to the Congo.
The second appeal is against an order made by Field J. on 26 th July 2006 in the exercise of the court’s Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction requiring the UK Vitol companies and two of their employees, Mr. Gilles Chautard and Mr. Shlomo (“Sam”) Lambroza, to disclose certain information about two cargoes of oil which had been, or were about to be, shipped from the loading terminal at Pointe Noire.
The third appeal is against an order made by Gross J. on 13 th July 2007, also in the exercise of the court’s Norwich Pharmacal jurisdiction, requiring the UK Vitol companies and Mr. Chautard and Mr. Lambroza to disclose certain information relating to payments said to have been made in Hong Kong by or on behalf of Vitol S.A. to employees or representatives of the Congo by way of bribes.
Background
For present purposes the essential background to these proceedings can be described quite shortly. Kensington is a financial institution which acquired, no doubt at a significant discount, sovereign debt on which the Congo had defaulted with a view to recovering the outstanding sums by legal action. Between 20 th December 2002 and 23 rd January 2003 it obtained four judgments in the Commercial Court for over US$110 million which the Congo has ignored and which Kensington has since been attempting to enforce.