The Claimants (‘D&G’) issued proceedings in January 2021 against an array of individuals and companies, based on the economic torts, reliant on fraudulent misrepresentations being made to members of the public by rogue trader businesses in the domestic appliance cover market.
The gist of the fraud involved cold calling customers and deceiving the customer into believing they were speaking to someone associated with the existing provider of their domestic appliance cover, often with the result that the person paid for appliance cover they did not need – in effect because they became ‘double covered’.
An interim injunction was granted in January 2021. After the joinder of additional defendants in November 2022, and further injunctive relief being granted, judgment was handed down in October 2024, upholding D&G’s claims (save in respect of one defendant) (accessible here).
A core aspect of D&G’s case at trial was that the January 2021 injunction was steadfastly ignored, and instead resulted in the establishment of phoenix entities, intended to continue the fraudulent sales practice.
A key event in the litigation was a search warrant executed by Trading Standards at premises in Brighton in May 2021 that resulted in the discovery of a wide array of documents (‘Trading Standards Material’), that supported the claims/allegations D&G was making.
Following judgment in its favour, D&G brought contempt applications for (a) knowingly making false statements in documents verified by statements of truth, (b) knowingly tendering false evidence at trial, and (c) assisting in breach of the January 2021 order (alleging both criminal and civil contempt) (‘Post Trial Contempt Applications’). These applications followed earlier contempt applications that D&G had successfully brought for deliberately breaching other court orders made subject to penal notice.
Following a 5-day trial before the Honourable Mr Justice Sweeting, judgment has been handed down upholding all of the Post-Trial Contempt Applications. Various legal arguments advanced by the defendants to exclude the Trading Standards Material were refused, and neither of the defendants to the contempt applications elected to deploy their evidence. The judgment can be accessed here and contains a useful overview of the principles applicable to contempt applications.
Nick Goodfellow and Stuart Sanders acted for D&G at the hearing, instructed by D&G’s in-house litigation team, led by Roberto Pagliarulo. Other Littleton members that have worked on the case are: Bláthnaid Breslin, Asfandyar Qureshi, Sophie Cashell and Carla Fischer.
An article on this case was posted by Law360, and can be viewed here.
