Pogust Goodhead has taken its dispute over the £36bn Mariana Dam litigation to the High Court, arguing the client committee ‘does not have the authority’ to shift representation to a rival firm.
On Friday (4 September), Pogust filed an application seeking declaratory relief that the client committee on the case did not have the authority to direct a change in representation.
Last week, Bailey Glasser International (BGI), the new UK arm of US firm Bailey & Glasser, announced that the client committee for the Mariana litigation in England, a confidential group of 17 members, had appointed it to take the case over from Pogust, with support from Hausfeld.
BGI is the trading name of Watford firm Edward McCourt & Company LLP, which was recently joined by three former Pogust lawyers.
Pogust argues that the client committee ‘does not have the authority, acting on its own, to transfer the claims of hundreds of thousands of other people who have individual contracts with the firm,’ it said in a statement.
In its statement, the firm said: ‘Clients are being encouraged to walk away from an established litigation structure on the representation that they can simply move to another firm with no material consequences.
‘Yet those decisions may affect the very contracts, funding, insurance protections and litigation timetable that have enabled this case to reach a 22-week damages trial that is now only months away.’
The recommendation of the client committee risks claimants making ‘irreversible steps on the basis of materially incomplete information,’ the statement continued – something Pogust says would be ‘a matter of serious concern.’
Earlier this year, Pogust brought in Quinn Emanuel to assist on the case, also securing an additional $150m in funding from long-term backer Gramercy Funds Management. Legal Business understands that Pogust has also sought declaratory relief that the client committee did not have the authority to prevent Pogust from appointing Quinn.
BGI previously said that the client committee’s decision to switch firms came on the back of ‘confidential concerns’ about Pogust’s conduct, and that the committee’s vote to appoint BGI was ‘unanimous.’
A spokesperson for Humphries Kerstetter, the litigation firm advising the client committee on replacing Pogust with BGI, said: ‘The Client Committee was established to represent the collective interests of the claimants and has broad decision-making powers over the conduct of the litigation, including providing instructions to the lawyers and taking the steps necessary for the continuation or resolution of the case.
‘The Committee acted within those contractual powers, repeatedly raised serious concerns about the conduct of the litigation, including through a formal notice, and sought independent legal advice before concluding that a change of representation had become unavoidable.
‘The Committee remains fully confident in the decision it took to protect the interests of the people it represents.’
The case, the result of the 2015 collapse of the Fundão dam in Brazil, which killed 19 people, is one of the largest group claims ever heard in the English courts. The damages trial is due to begin in April 2027.
