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	England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) Decisions >> Sachs v Snape & Ors [2025] EWHC 1746 (Comm) (04 April 2025) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2025/1746.html Cite as: [2025] EWHC 1746 (Comm)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS IN MANCHESTER
CIRCUIT COMMERCIAL COURT (KBD)

		Manchester Civil Justice Centre 1 Bridge Street West Manchester M60 9DJ
		4th April 2025

This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part, other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved.

This judgment was delivered in private. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of the children and members of their family must be strictly preserved. All persons, including representatives of the media, must ensure that this condition is strictly complied with. Failure to do so will be a contempt of court.

HHJ PEARCE:

1. This is my judgment on the application brought by the claimant for injunctions both of a proprietary nature and of a Mareva-type nature in support of enforcement of an arguable case.
2. The application was issued by a notice dated 31 March 2025. As I shall come to in due course, there has been something of a delay in issuing this application, although in the circumstances, I do not consider that that delay ought to lead to the application being refused without looking more closely at its merits.
3. The background to the case is well-summarised within the skeleton argument of Mr Pomfret KC and Mr Sharma served on behalf of the claimant. I am grateful to them for their written submissions and to Mr Pomfret KC for his oral submissions, which have enabled this case to be dealt with efficiently. It relates to cryptocurrency, although, as Mr Pomfret rightly says, , it is not a particularly complex case by the standards of cryptocurrency. Anyone who has had to deal with cryptocurrency cases, particularly injunctions relating to cryptocurrencies will be aware of the issues that can arise as to how one describes the holder of a cryptocurrency where one does not know their name and/or how one serves the holder of a cryptocurrency if one does not have a name and an address for them. Both of those issues have now been considered in a series of cases and there are accepted ways of dealing with both of those issues, which are relatively well-established now and need not cause the Court any great concern.
4. The claimant, who lives in Italy, is an entrepreneur and is involved in finance and investment. In about September 2023, he met Mr Hayden Ross Snape, the first respondent to this application. The claimant and Mr Snape struck up, seemingly, a good relationship and as Mr Sachs, the claimant, sets out within the material to which I shall refer in a moment, he was persuaded to invest in cryptocurrencies by the first respondent.
5. The nature of those investments is summarised within paragraphs five and following of the skeleton argument for the claimant but it included, amongst other things, entering into an anchorage agreement, which was stated to be governed by and to be construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. The claimant invested various sums and gave the first defendant respondent access to his accounts to enable Mr Snape to invest monies on his behalf.
6. The other respondents to this application became involved in various ways. The second respondent is the first respondent's brother. He was involved in meetings with claimant. In addition to this, on one occasion, he paid over monies to the claimant as part of the investment strategy that the claimant was pursuing. All of this suggests that this is a business and an enterprise with which the second respondent was concerned.
7. The third respondent is a company owned and operated by the first and second respondents with a company address in the United Kingdom. It was a party to the consultancy agreement, which is another agreement reached between the parties. The consultancy agreement is not governed by English law but rather by Italian law but, nevertheless, it is apparent from the entering into of that agreement that the third respondent was also involved in the investment business that the first respondent maintained he was carrying out for the claimant.
8. The fourth respondent is a Miami-based company. It is outside of the jurisdiction, and that goes to a gateway and service issue that I address in due course. It is a company of which the first respondent is an authorised person and a company to which the claimant transferred money at the first defendant's request.
9. Finally, the persons unknown, named as the fifth respondent, are persons who hold cryptocurrency or cryptocurrency wallets, to which the claimant makes a proprietary claim.
10. Essentially, what appears to have happened is that, after the first respondent obtained the investment of a significant sum of money from the claimant, he was not able to or not willing to repay the claimant. He has acknowledged a liability to do so, and in a series of correspondences set out in paragraph 7.3 of the evidence of Mr Sachs, to which, again, I shall refer in due course, he has acknowledged on several occasions a liability to repay significant sums of monies. However, no money has been repaid.
11. In those circumstances, perhaps unsurprisingly, the claimant considers that he has been the subject of a fraud and that he has a proprietary right to monies that have been taken from him or given by him to the first or one of the other respondents for the purpose, for the specific purpose of investment by them. Further, he contends that he has causative action of a variety of kinds relating to fiduciary duties, deceit and breach of contract and such like in respect of which he contends he has a good arguable case of establishing a claim in debt and/or in damages which would be liable to lead him to be able to enforce a judgment against the respondents if the respondents have relevant assets.
12. In those circumstances, this freezing application is brought. The hearing takes place on the last working day before the new version of Practice Direction 25 relating to interim remedies comes into force - see the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2025. It is also the last working day before new model orders come into force. For reasons that I have discussed with Mr Pomfret, in my judgment, there is good sense, at least in the facts of this case, in using the new model order rather than the old model order, in particular where the Court is considering making a freezing injunction that has a proprietary element to it as well as the more conventional Mareva element to it. There is, in particular good reason to seek to ensure that the order distinguishes clearly between the two aspects of the freezing injunction. The new model order does precisely that and indeed, as I understand it, the desirability of doing that is one of the reasons that it was brought into effect. It has accordingly been to the new model order that I have looked when determining what, if any, relief I should grant to the claimant in this case.
13. The new CPR Part 25 and the old Practice Direction 25A require an application for a freezing injunction to be supported by an affidavit. The claimant has attested to a document which has been notarised in Italy and which is in the bundle before me but it cannot, it seems to me, properly, in and of itself, be called an affidavit because it does not comply with the Practice Direction as to the concluding terms of an affidavit. The claimant has sought to put that right by serving a witness statement dated 2 April supported by a statement of truth. Taking those two documents together, it seems to me that I can properly treat the two documents as amounting to an affidavit.
14. Even if technically that were not permissible, I would, in the particular facts of this case, permit the claimant to proceed with the application notwithstanding that he had not served an affidavit given that what he has served is so close to being what he would have served if he had served it as an affidavit as to make no meaningful difference to the application.
15. The claimant has sought this hearing to take place in private for the understandable reason that he does not wish to give any notice to the defendants of the remedies that he is seeking lest that lead them to take further steps to dispose of or hide assets which he contends are his, or at the very least he contends ought to be frozen pending determination of the issues in this case.
16. The test to be applied in respect of the two aspects of the injunctive relief sought are clear and well-trodden. On the first issue, the proprietary freezing injunction, the test is the American Cyanamid Co. v Ethicon Limited [1975] UKHL 1 test: is there a serious issue to be tried? If so, would damages be an adequate remedy if an injunction were not granted? If damages would not be an adequate remedy, the Court should then consider the balance of convenience and weigh the potential detriment to the claimant if an injunction is granted when it should not have been as against the detriment to the respondents if an injunction is granted when it should not have been.
17. I accept, for the purposes of that proprietary and freezing injunction, that cryptocurrency is at least arguably property which can be the subject of such an injunction, see Tulip Trading Limited v Wladimir Van Der Laan [2023] EWCA Civ 83.
18. On the other aspect of the freezing injunction, the claimant must show a good arguable case, which in Dos Santos v Unitel S.A. [2024] EWCA Civ 1109, the Court of Appeal confirmed meant the same as a serious issue to be tried. He must show a real risk judged objectively that a future judgment might not be enforced because of an unjustified disposition of assets and he must show that it is just and convenient in all the circumstances to grant the freezing order.
19. I have considered with Mr Pomfret during the course of submissions this morning the extent of the assets which the claimant placed at the disposal of, at the very least, the first respondent if not the other respondents. I am satisfied on the material before me that it is arguable that such assets are to the tune of around about £1.3 million. In coming to that figure, I have taken a cautious view in looking at the material before the Court and indeed I have explored with Mr Pomfret the varying different figures that appear in different places within the documents but on any version of events, I accept that the figures from different parts of Mr Sachs' affidavit need to be totted up to give a realistic and probable total value to this claim and that £1.3 million is a realistic valuation if his case is otherwise made out.
20. The material before the Court and in particular what, on the face of it, appears to be an evasiveness on the part of the first respondent as to repaying monies which he acknowledges are due to the claimant is clearly to my mind suggestive that this is a case with a real risk of dissipation when judged on the appropriate objective standard. A future judgment here may well be frustrated. Why would Mr Snape be any more willing to submit to a judgment and satisfy that judgment than he has been thus far to pay the monies that he has acknowledged are due to the claimant?
21. In those circumstances, I am satisfied, both in respect of a proprietary injunction and more generally in respect of an injunction in support of preserving a future judgment and preventing the unjustified disposition of assets, it is, on the face of it, justified and appropriate on the facts of this case.
22. The balance of convenience, in my judgment, lies in favour of the claimant in circumstances where he has, on the face of it, an acknowledged right to repayment of at least some of the monies in respect of which this claim is brought and in circumstances where the defendant has only ever offered what might be called a holding position as to why the money is not in fact been paid.
23. There has, as I have indicated, been something of a delay in this case. The claimant was able to formulate allegations against the respondents, certainly the first respondent, back in September of last year, yet it is only now at the beginning of April 2025 that this claim is brought before the Court, and the reasoning for that is not entirely obvious from his affidavit. In particular, there is reference to the investigations that have been made on his behalf and the commissioning of a report from Mr Robert Moore of Arrowsgate Ltd, a company which deals with cryptocurrency and similar financial investigations. No doubt, Mr Moore's report will have taken some time to prepare, and its date of 26 March 2025 appears consistent with a speedy move to seeking an injunction since it was produced but that does not really explain why it took so long for the report to be forthcoming and it is not obvious to me from the material in Mr Sachs' statement that there was some inevitable delay in obtaining the report.
24. On the other hand, any person in the position of the claimant would wish, if at all possible, to avoid the costs of litigation and the costs of preparing a report such as that obtained from Mr Moore here, and even when that person suspected that they had been the subject of a fraud, they would no doubt look to other means to try to recover their money before incurring the cost and serious inconvenience of litigation.
25. This is not a case with a huge delay in coming to the court. As Mr Pomfret pointed out in his submissions, there are cases where the delay has been measured not in months but in years. In my judgment, particularly if the claimant is able to make out a proprietary right to assets in the control of the defendants, then it would be harsh to deprive him of a remedy which I otherwise would have granted simply on the grounds of that delay. In particular, it does not seem to me that there is any particular reason to think that the delay has altered the prospect of this injunctive relief that I will grant being effective to preserve assets on the claimant's behalf.
26. For all of those reasons then, in principle, in my judgment, an order is appropriate on the facts of this case. The first, second and third respondents to this application have addresses in the jurisdiction and can be served here. I am satisfied from the material before me that it is at least arguable that the claims against them are properly the subject of English law.
27. In respect of the fourth defendant, the Miami-based company, it is out of the jurisdiction but, as Mr Pomfret and Mr Sharma argue at paragraph 19 of their skeleton argument, this is a case where the claim ought to be permitted to proceed under gateway three of CPR Practice Direction 6B. I considered that issue in advance of the hearing and indeed read with interest the judgment in Commercial Bank of Dubai PSC v Al Sari [2024] EWHC 3304 (Comm).
28. As Mr Pomfret points out, this case involves a different factual scenario than the Commercial Bank of Dubai case, arguably, in fact, a much stronger one. I am entirely satisfied that this is a case that can be brought within gateway three and that I could and should give permission to serve out of the jurisdiction.
29. In respect of the fifth defendant as persons unknown, the claimant seeks substituted service in the manner set out within the draft order that is put before the Court. I am satisfied that that is an appropriate order to make in this case with, I think, the good and well-reasoned tweak to the typical order that has often been made in the past that reflects the fact that service ought not to be effected by substituted means if that service would not be effective in accordance with the law of the country where the particular recipient is located. To fail to deal with that issue is to fail to deal with an important issue of comity between courts.
30. The claimant offers a cross-undertaking in damages not fortified by a guarantee. I have reviewed the material in support of his ability to meet the cross-undertaking, particularly those documents at page 106 and following in the bundle. I am satisfied that on the facts of this case, it is not necessary or desirable to require a guarantee in addition to the undertaking.
31. Finally, I think, I have considered the terms of the draft order put in front of me and I have in particular considered whether the £1.3 million that I'm willing to restrain by way of this injunction is a figure that ought to apply generally across the parties in the manner that it would do in the revised version of the injunction that is before this Court.
32. In my judgment, it is appropriate so to order on the facts of this case, a case where it would seem probable that if a fraud has been committed at all, that other defendants than the first defendant are a party to that fraud given the various involvement that the various persons have had.
33. In those circumstances then, I will make an order in the terms of the draft before the Court. I have agreed in submissions that an appropriate return date for this case is 28 April. That is a slightly longer period than I would normally order but the intervening Easter period will both make it slightly more difficult to achieve a satisfactory listing because of the availability of parties' lawyers and Judges and also is likely to affect the ability of the respondents to prepare for the return hearing in any event. In those circumstances, an adjournment until 28 April when the matter will be relisted before me is appropriate.
End of Judgment.
This transcript has been approved by the judge.