On 12 February 2026, the High Court handed down summary judgment for over $7 million in DBLP Sea Cow Ltd v Steffensen, finding that the defendant had wrongfully sold shares in breach of trust, using a ‘concocted’sham share purchase agreement.
Alexander Halban acted for the claimant, led by Nikki Singla KC of Wilberforce Chambers (and appearing unled at two interim hearings). They were instructed by Richard Viegas and Jennifer Gregor of Taylor Wessing LLP.
The case involved shares in Rezolve AI plc, an AI company listed on the NASDAQ. The Claimant, DBLP (owned by Mr Wagner, the founder of Rezolve) agreed to sell the shares to the Defendant, Mr Steffensen, a businessman and self-styled ‘cryptocurrency billionaire’.
The shares were transferred to Mr Steffensen under a share purchase agreement (SPA). He transferred to DBLP tokens in a new cryptocurrency called Jinbi, which DBLP would hold until Mr Steffensen paid cash for the shares. The agreement provided that, until Mr Steffensen paid cash, he had to hold the shares on trust for DBLP and if he failed to pay, he had to return the shares.
After receiving the shares, Mr Steffensen immediately sold some of them, in breach of trust. His broker placed restrictions on the shares, preventing further sales, until he showed them the full SPA. Mr Steffensen arranged for a sham version of the SPA to be created, omitting the provisions of the shares to be held on trust. That version was designed only to show his broker, to persuade them to lift restrictions on the shares.
Once the restrictions were lifted, Mr Steffensen sold all the remaining the shares, in breach of trust. He hid these sales from DBLP and negotiated further time to pay for the shares. He then sought to enforce the sham agreement against DBLP, claiming further shares under it.
In October 2025 Rajah J granted DBLP a proprietary injunction against Mr Steffensen ([2025] EWHC 2732 (Ch)), freezing the shares and sale proceeds, and ordering him to disclose their location. Mr Steffensen explained that that he had already sold all the shares and had spent all the sale proceeds. However, he explicitly refused to identify the recipients of the payments or give his bank details, in breach of the injunction.
DBLP obtained a further injunction from Mellor J ([2025] EWHC 2983 (Ch)) ordering more detailed information to locate the share sale proceeds. Mr Steffensen again refused to provide that information, in breach of that injunction.
Finally, DBLP obtained an ‘unless’ order from Sir Anthony Mann, that if Mr Steffensen refused to comply with these court orders, he would be debarred from defending the claim. Mr Steffensen again refused to comply and was debarred.
On 12 February 2026, the court (Mr Philip Rainey KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court judge) granted DBLP summary judgment ([2026] EWHC 281 (Ch)). The court found that Mr Steffensen had sold the shares in breach of trust and the alternative version of the share purchase agreement, which Mr Steffensen relied on, was a concocted sham and had no effect.
The court found that Mr Steffensen had no real prospect of defending the claim on the merits, even if he had not been debarred from defending. This was a rare instance of summary judgment being granted on a fraud claim, all on the basis of contemporary documents.
It also found that the debarring order prevented Mr Steffensen from making submissions on the merits of the case, including a summary judgment application, although it permitted submissions on the form of relief granted in the judgment and on costs.
The court awarded judgment for the current value of the shares, over $7 million, and indemnity costs, to reflect Mr Steffensen’s deliberate breach of court injunctions and his wrongful sale of the shares in breach of trust. The court made a further injunction for Mr Steffensen to disclose the location of the share sale proceeds.
The summary judgment can be found here.
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