FW Aviation (Holdings) 1 Limited v VietJet Aviation Joint Stock Company
[2024] EWHC 1823 (Comm)
Charles Steven Bond & Anor v Denise May Webster & Ors
29 April 2024
[2024] EWHC 989 (Ch)
High Court
A family fought over their dad's will and business. One side claimed the other threatened them during secret talks to drop their challenge. The judge said the conflicting stories about the talks were too unclear to prove wrongdoing, so the secret talks stayed protected.
Key Facts
- •Application to strike out paragraphs in witness statements referencing without prejudice negotiations in a probate trial.
- •Dispute over the validity of a will and codicil, with differing distributions of shares in a family business.
- •Allegation of an improper threat by the Claimants' solicitor during a without prejudice meeting.
- •Central issue: whether the 'unambiguous impropriety' exception disapplies without prejudice privilege.
- •The meeting concerned the potential Inheritance Tax liability arising from share transfers and sales.
- •Conflicting accounts of the meeting between the solicitors involved, Mr. Rann (Claimants) and Mr. Rowley (Defendants).
Legal Principles
Without prejudice privilege is jealously protected and only disapplied in cases of unambiguous impropriety.
Motorola Solutions Inc v Hytera Communications Corpn Ltd [2021] QB 774
Even probable impropriety is insufficient; the evidence must be rigorously scrutinised for ambiguity.
Motorola Solutions Inc v Hytera Communications Corpn Ltd [2021] QB 774
In cases involving threats, it may be easier to establish unambiguous impropriety.
Ferster v Ferster [2016] EWCA Civ 717
Outcomes
The application to strike out the paragraphs referencing the without prejudice meeting was dismissed.
The court found insufficient clarity in the accounts of the meeting to establish unambiguous impropriety. The court determined that Mr. Rann's offer, while leveraging the Inheritance Tax issue, did not constitute unambiguous impropriety. The risk to the Defendants was a genuine one, not artificially created by the Claimants.