Watching the detectives

At recent High Court hearings in the Fiona Trust fraud case, Ince & Co litigation partner Stuart Shepherd was confronted with the allegation that he had committed perjury. The claim was that he had lied on oath about the extent of his knowledge regarding the illegal activities of private investigators.

By hook or by crook, investigation companies Hart, Modus and CIS had got hold of all sorts of private information, including the bank records of various individuals (two leading protagonists are Yuri Nikitin and Dmitry Skarga) alleged to be involved in a major conspiracy to defraud Shepherd’s Russian client Sovcomflot, the Russian state-owned commercial maritime fleet, out of approximately $500m.

The Fiona Trust case is one of the biggest fraud matters currently working its way through the London courts. At one hearing in December last year, counsel instructed by Shepherd on behalf of Sovcomflot, Julian Flaux QC, made no great effort to deny that the investigations had been illegal, but said he did not accept the perjury charge against Shepherd.

Ince & Co, meanwhile, says that any allegations relating to the use of investigators would have to be tested in court. This was echoed by Andrew Popplewell QC (who stood in for Flaux) at a hearing in April. ‘We vehemently reject the suggestion that anything said by Mr Shepherd was an attempt to mislead the court, and reject the suggestion that the claimants instructed investigators to use illegal means. And we reject the suggestion that there was any relevant material known by Ince & Co or by Sovcomflot to have been illegally obtained,’ he said. ‘Of course, if your Lordship were to investigate the question as to whether Mr Shepherd had behaved improperly, then that would be something that could only take place with a trial and with oral evidence, which would be wholly inappropriate and impossible at this hearing.’

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