The High Court has refused an application by HKR Middle East Architects Engineering LLC (HKRME) to revisit an earlier ruling that limited its unjust enrichment claim against Barry English to the company’s unpaid liabilities.
In a judgment delivered on 31 May 2021, Mr Justice Denis McDonald said HKRME had not shown strong reasons for changing the principal judgment, which had not yet been turned into a perfected order. He said any challenge to his ruling should be pursued by appeal.
The earlier judgment, delivered in May 2019, dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims except for HKRME’s claim concerning payments made to Sunvit, a British Virgin Islands entity controlled by Mr English. The payments totalled US$8,094,873 between April 2012 and March 2013. The court had limited HKRME’s claim to the amount needed to meet its unpaid and lawful liabilities. The judgment recorded an earlier estimate of about €2.06 million and a later claim of about €3.29 million.
HKRME argued that the earlier judgment wrongly treated its claim as limited to those liabilities and asked to pursue recovery of all the transferred funds. Mr English disputed that there had been an error and argued that any challenge belonged on appeal.
Justice McDonald concluded that the earlier decision reflected both the way the case had been pleaded and the evidence accepted at trial. He referred to the plaintiffs’ case that funds would be available to HKRME to meet its liabilities, while any remainder was intended for the Ryan Children’s Trust. The court had found that the trust was a sham in relation to the transferred money and that Mr Ryan intended the surplus for his own benefit, while concealing it from creditors and his bankruptcy trustee.
The judge also noted that HKRME’s claims under UAE company law had failed. On the case presented, there was no basis to find that Mr Ryan was not entitled to direct the extraction of funds for his own benefit. Mr Ryan had not claimed the surplus in his own name in these proceedings.
The court refused HKRME’s application. It did not decide whether delay or estoppel provided additional grounds to refuse it, saying that question was unnecessary. On costs, the judge gave a provisional view that HKRME should pay Mr English’s costs of the application, subject to a stay pending the final determination of the proceedings. Either side could make written submissions seeking a different order within 14 days of electronic delivery. The parties were also directed to file written submissions within 28 days, subject to any required or permitted redactions.