Court rejects application for Norwich Pharmacal order in the Magomedov litigation

The Commercial Court has rejected an application by the Claimants in the Magomedov litigation – a $14 billion claim concerning alleged unlawful means conspiracies and bribery – for a Norwich Pharmacal order against three financial services companies, following the hearing of jurisdiction challenges and of the Claimants’ substantive application for Norwich Pharmacal relief, at a two-day hearing before Jacobs J.

In the case of the First Respondent, the Court held that an order for alternative service by email in Liechtenstein should be set aside as being positively contrary to Liechtenstein law. Although the Court did uphold a separate order for alternative service in the UK, the substantive application failed because of the likelihood that the provision of information would be contrary to Liechtenstein law, with the Court concluding that the First Respondent “as a third party which is not alleged to have been a wrongdoer, should not be subject to speculative and unprecedented litigation” in Liechtenstein.

As against the Second and Third Respondents, the Court concluded that they had not been mixed up in the wrongdoing and so the Norwich Pharmacal applications against them failed for this reason.

Bobby Friedman and Rachael Earle acted for the successful First Respondent, instructed by Sue Thackeray, Laurence Clarke and Phoebe Alexander of Kingsley Napley.

Read the full judgment