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	England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions >> Power v Brown & Ors [2009] EWHC 9 (Ch) (15 January 2009) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2009/9.html Cite as: [2009] EWHC 9 (Ch), [2009] BPIR 340

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
ON APPEAL FROM THE GUILDFORD COUNTY COURT

		15 January 2009

Introduction

1. This is a reserved Judgment following on from the hearing of the Appeal on 17 December 2008. At the conclusion of the hearing of the Appeal I announced to the parties my decision that the Appeal would be dismissed but that written reasons would be set out in this Judgment subsequently.
2. The Appellant commenced his Appeal by applying for an adjournment. I refused that application and gave reasons which I need not repeat here.
3. The Appellant provided me with a fairly comprehensive bundle, compiled with some skill. He appeared to me to be fully capable of understanding the issues and putting his points across. He has on occasions in the past had representation from solicitors and counsel and, having previously been bankrupt, shows a reasonable state of knowledge and awareness of bankruptcy law and practice.

Background

4. I need to set out, as concisely as possible, such of the complicated background as is necessary to understand my decision in this Appeal. Further detail can be found in the Judgment of Peter Leaver QC dated 23 April 2007, given after a 5 day trial.
5. On 17 December 2001, Park J had decided that the Appellant's wife, Mrs Power, held a property known as The Old Rectory on trust as to 50% for herself and as to 50% for Mr Godfrey, the Third Respondent to this Appeal. At the same time, Park J dismissed a claim by Mrs Power and certain associated companies for damages and ordered Mrs Power to repay certain borrowings. Park J also ordered Mrs Power to pay Mr Godfrey's costs and made an order for sale of The Old Rectory.
6. Park J also permitted a Mr Swain to be joined into the actions and made orders in his favour. Mr Swain subsequently assigned the debt due to him from Mrs Power to Mr Godfrey. That debt amounted to almost £150,000, including costs.
7. On 26 August 2005, Mrs Power was adjudicated bankrupt on her own petition. Her trustee in bankruptcy is Mr Kevin Brown, the First Respondent to this Appeal, appointed on 16 December 2005.
8. Mr Godfrey commenced a High Court proceeding, case number HC04C04019, against Mr and Mrs Power amongst others in relation to certain property. The other defendants were Strasburg Capital Limited, a British Virgin Islands company which had been struck off the British Virgin Islands' companies register and Bellcove Limited, a company of which Mr Power was the only director. Yet another defendant was a Mr Torpy, an Australian relation of Mr Power.
9. In a brief Judgment of 5 May 2006, Peter Smith J, on an application by Bellcove Limited to vacate an entry on the Land Registry against a particular property, raised the question of whether or not the action was properly constituted in the light of Mrs Power's bankruptcy. By an order dated 5 May 2006 he directed Mr Godfrey by 4.00pm on Friday, 12 May 2006 to issue an application to join the Trustee in Bankruptcy of Mrs Power as claimant or defendant or to amend his particulars of claim so as to reflect an assignment of the trustee in bankruptcy's cause of action. Accordingly, there was an urgent need from Mr Godfrey's point of view to take one of those courses. Likewise there was plainly urgency for the trustee in bankruptcy of Mrs Power to resolve the question of whether or not there would be an assignment if he did not want to end up being joined and incurring costs in the litigation.
10. According to Mr Power's own evidence, on the same date, 5 May 2006, he made an offer of £75,000 for the causes of action and rights in relation to the relevant properties vested in his wife's trustee in bankruptcy. According to his own evidence below, this was not accepted by his wife's trustee and he withdrew the offer, although he advised the trustee that he would be back to him "shortly" with an improved offer, once it had been approved by his legal team. It is not in dispute that at no time between 5 May 2006 and the assignment of the cause of action to Mr Godfrey on 12 May 2006, being the date of the deadline set by Peter Smith J, did Mr Power make any renewed offer.
11. The action by Mr Godfrey now proceeded on the basis that it was correctly constituted and the assignment was plainly the reason why this was considered to be so. Mr Peter Leaver QC in his Judgment at paragraph 8 recited the assignment to Mr Godfrey. It was also on the basis of this assignment that Mr Godfrey succeeded in those proceedings on the further grounds that the properties were held as bare trustee for Mrs Power prior to her bankruptcy and subsequently for her trustee in bankruptcy, from whom Mr Godfrey's title derived.
12. A number of other matters unhelpful to Mr Power's submissions on this appeal appear from that judgment. Mr Power had been adjudicated bankrupt in the past, although he was no longer bankrupt by the time of the trial. Whereas Mr Godfrey impressed the learned judge as an "impressive and credible witness", the judge was unable to place any weight on the evidence given either by Mr or Mrs Power. In fact he concluded that "Mrs Power was an equal actor in the deceit and dishonesty practised by her and her husband". This deceit and dishonesty included "forgery of documents, forgery of signatures and lying both to third parties in their business dealings with them, and to the court." The learned judge concluded that each and every transaction in relation to the properties was a "sham transaction" whose "dominant purpose" was "to remove assets from the reach of actual or potential creditors."
13. Mr Power did not at any stage of the 5 day trial challenge the assignment by his wife's trustee to Mr Godfrey. He frankly admitted before me that he hoped to win the proceeding and did not think it relevant to make such a challenge.

The hearing below

14. District Judge Beck dismissed Mr Power's application to set aside the assignment by his wife's trustee to Mr Godfrey both on the grounds that Mr Power had failed to make out a case that his wife's trustee had acted in a manner that no reasonable trustee would be expected to act and on the grounds that if he wished to object to the validity of the assignment he could and should have done so at the trial before Mr Peter Leaver QC. To raise the matter now was an abuse of process.

Does Mr Power have standing to pursue this Appeal?

15. Mr Power, as a bankrupt, has no standing to pursue any appeal which relates to the assets in the estate which have passed to his Trustee in Bankruptcy: see Heath v Tang [1993] 1 WLR 1421 (CA), where the authorities are reviewed by Hoffmann L.J. and subsequently, Wordsworth v Dixon [1997] BPIR 337 (CA), Church of Scientology v Scott [1997] BPIR 418 (CA) and Boyd & Hutchinson v Foenander [2003] EWCA Civ 1516.
16. Mr. Godfrey presented a bankruptcy petition against Mr. Power on 28 June 2007. This was supported by HM Revenue and Customs. After service of the bankruptcy petition on him but just 5 days before the bankruptcy order was made on 22 January 2008, Mr Power purported to assign his alleged causes of action against Mrs Power and Mr Godfrey to an Irish company called Base Systems Ireland Limited ("Base"). Base has a registered address which Mr. Power has used as a residential address. Mr. Power told me he had been a director of Base and was now a 20% shareholder, the shares being after-acquired property.
17. The assignment was by a Deed of Assignment dated 17^th January 2008, in consideration of £750 and 20% of the "net realisable". Shortly after the bankruptcy order was made, the same rights were assigned back to Mr.Power by Base by a Deed of Assignment dated 17 March 2008. Although Recital (2) suggests that it has been agreed that the price was £50 and 20% of the "net realizable", the actual assignment back is for just £50.
18. The assignments make no commercial sense at all and were obviously part of a manoeuvre to keep Mr Power's purported rights under his control unless and until his Trustee in Bankruptcy intervened. Mr. Power's ability to raise any objection to the assignment by his wife's trustee depended upon his status as an alleged creditor of Mrs Power. That claim against Mrs Power would, without any such manoeuvre, pass to his trustee in bankruptcy. The object of the stratagem was therefore plainly to "warehouse" his claim as a creditor against his wife's estate and therefore his standing to challenge the assignment by the trustee with a friendly party so that it would not pass to his trustee in bankruptcy. The return of the rights to him as after-acquired property would, he thought, enable him to rely on those rights unless and until his trustee in bankruptcy intervened. His Trustee in Bankruptcy, the Official Receiver, has to date not made any application to intervene.
19. The tactic, however, appears to have overlooked the fact that under s.284 of the Insolvency Act 1986 the making of the bankruptcy order renders any such disposition between the filing of the petition and the bankruptcy order void.
20. Can such voidness be relied on by the Respondents to the appeal rather than by Mr. Power's Trustee in Bankruptcy? In the case of s.127 of the Insolvency Act 1986, the parallel avoidance provision for companies, it has been held that reliance on the avoidance of dispositions is not limited to the liquidator: Mond v Hammond Suddards [1996] 2 BCLC 470. It seems to me that similarly, in bankruptcy, s.284 can be relied on, in a proper case, by persons other than the Trustee in Bankruptcy. The Court's ability to validate dispositions under either s. 127 or 284 will check any attempted excessive or unjust use of the provisions.
21. In Fresjac Pty Ltd (In Liquidation): Campbell v Michael Mount PPB (1995) 65 SASR 334 [1995] SASC 5598; [1995] SASC 5378 (21 December 1995), the Supreme Court of South Australia considered that a disposition under their then equivalent of s.127 was void for all purposes and that the voidness could be relied on by parties other than a liquidator. A majority then held that, nevertheless, the right to recover belonged only to the liquidator. Although the majority holding seems inconsistent with Mond v Hammond Suddards, both cases agree that, apart from the question of recovery, parties other than a liquidator can rely on the voidness of the disposition. In my judgment the same approach must apply in bankruptcy and the Respondents to this appeal must be able to rely on the voidness of the disposition.
22. Furthermore, the assignment to Base has already been ruled to be void under s.284, in a related set of proceedings between Mr Power and Mr Godfrey in the Queen's Bench Division (Claim No: HQ07X04290), by Master Fontaine, on 16 October 2008. Master Fontaine on that occasion also rejected Mr. Power's argument that the assignment to Base was exempt from the effect of s.284 by reasons of s.284(6), which would apply to the disposition of property held on trust by Mr Power for another person. Master Fontaine gave 3 reasons for rejecting the argument: (i) the assertion of trust was only made after Mr. Power's receipt of Mr. Godfrey's evidence referring to s.284; (ii) Mr. Power's evidence did not state the nature of the trust or identify the beneficiaries and (iii) the assertion of trust is in direct contradiction of the assignment.
23. Mr Power tells me he is appealing that decision but, as at the time of the hearing of the present appeal, that holding is in place and concludes the matter against Mr Power as a matter of res judicata or issue estoppel.
24. I would add, although it is not strictly necessary to do so, that it seems to me that such a blatant act of "warehousing" with a view to avoiding an asset passing into the hands of a trustee in bankruptcy, plainly on a pre-arranged basis that the assets should come back after bankruptcy, creates in my view no more than a nomineeship in the purported transferee, Base, so that the beneficial interest never left the estate of Mr Power. It is not, therefore, actually necessary in my view in such a blatant case to resort to section 284 of the Insolvency Act 1986. There was simply no effective disposition of the beneficial interest in the alleged rights Mr. Power relies on and they never ceased to be his.
25. The position at the time of this Appeal is, therefore, that both the right of appeal and the underlying rights sought to be enforced by the challenge to the assignment made by Mrs Power's trustee in bankruptcy have both passed to the Official Receiver as Mr Power's trustee in bankruptcy. He has shown no desire to pursue the Appeal. It follows, that, apart from one further point, Mr Power plainly has no standing to pursue the Appeal.

Mr Power's application for a validation order

26. No doubt as a tactical counter to what he could see coming, as a result of some remarks by Mr Justice Warren on yet another application made by Mr Power, to the effect that Mr Justice Warren doubted whether Mr Power had standing to pursue the Appeal, Mr Power's further move has been to apply against the Official Receiver as his trustee in the Guildford County Court to validate the purported transfer to Base under s.284. In accordance with the overriding objective (CPR 1.1), I decided to transfer the application in the Guildford County Court to the High Court and to hear it together with the Appeal, since the two matters are so closely connected. This was necessary in my view in order to save expense, and to ensure that both the appeal and the validation application were dealt with expeditiously and fairly. I also ordered that the Respondents to the Appeal be added as Respondents to the validation application so as to add all the relevant parties to that application.
27. Although I have a wide discretion in relation to validations under s.284 of the Insolvency Act 1986, that discretion obviously has to be exercised on a proper judicial basis.
28. Mr Power argues in support of the validation application that the rights assigned to Base were in fact held by him on trust for a Mr Joyce and a Mr White. There was no proper evidence of that trust before me.
29. Mr Power invited me to look at two copy documents in his bundle. The first is a letter purporting to have been written by him to Mr White and dated 5 April 2006 which states that Mr Power confirms that he is holding the "rights of actions as in the attached Schedule" on trust for Mr White and Mr Joyce in the proportions 75/25. The letter also purports to confirm that Mr White alone can give Mr Power directions in relation to the trust. The letter purports to confirm the receipt of "Cheques" for €15,000 which "has" been banked. No schedule is in fact attached. The second document purports to be a signed statement by Mr White purportedly dated 10 November 2008. This states that Mr Power "held" "the right of actions (as per the attached schedule) on trust for me and Edward Joyce, since April 2006." No schedule is attached. The statement goes on to say that Mr Power asked Mr White "some time ago" for a copy of "the letter" but that Mr White had difficulties finding it. The statement then concludes:-

"The matter was dealt with as far as I was concerned on the 17/January/2008, when as instructed by me, Larry Power assigned the rights of action to Base Systems Ireland Limited."

30. The documents have not properly been put into evidence but I do not rest my rejection of them on purely technical grounds. The fact that there was no witness statement exhibiting originals, no explanation as to how the documents came into existence and no witness statements from Messrs White and Joyce was specifically pointed out to Mr. Powers by Warren J. in a judgment dated 30 November 2008 on a related application, yet Mr. Power has done nothing about these points.
31. The documents moreover appear to me to be meaningless without the schedule, which is missing. Furthermore, given the history of forgery and deceit by Mr Power, including two trust documents held to be forgeries by Mr. Peter Leaver QC, and the lateness with which this trust allegation emerged, without proper substantiation, before Master Fontaine, I would need to be convinced, not only by the matters mentioned by Warren J., but also by some independent reliable evidence that these documents are genuine before considering allowing them in. No such evidence is available.
32. It is also the case that this trust argument, if valid, would take the disposition to Base outside s.284 by reason of s.284(6) and that very argument was run unsuccessfully by Mr. Power before Master Fontaine, so that in substance this is an attempt by Mr. Power to argue again the same point that he lost before Master Fontaine.
33. The trust argument is thus unsubstantiated, incredible and in all the circumstances of this case an abuse of the process of the Court within the approach of the House of Lords in Johnson v Gore Wood & Co (a firm) [2002] 2 AC 1 per Lord Bingham at p.31.
34. Without a valid and credible trust argument, there is no proper reason for validating the disposition to Base. On the contrary, it would be wrong to validate a disposition designed to remove a purported asset from the estate, particularly when the sole purpose is to perpetuate what I find below to be meritless and futile litigation.
35. In necessarily follows from that that the right of appeal is vested in Mr Power's Trustee in Bankruptcy, who has not pursued it. The underlying rights on which the Appeal is based are also vested in Mr Power's trustee. Accordingly Mr Power has no standing at all to bring or continue this Appeal. On that ground alone, the appeal must be dismissed.
36. In case I am wrong about that, although I should make clear that I have no doubt or hesitation in my conclusions up to this stage, I shall also deal concisely with the actual merits of the Appeal against the decision of District Judge Beck.

The underlying merits

37. The Appeal from the judgment of District Judge Beck of the 31^st October 2007 is of course not a rehearing but a review of the decision. The onus is on the Appellant to satisfy the Court that the learned Judge below erred in law or exercised his discretion on some wrong principle or overlooked some key matter.
38. The learned Judge's decision was based on two points. Firstly he was not persuaded that Mr Power had made out a case that the Trustee's exercise of his powers was reviewable. It seems to me that that decision was self-evidently correct. The Trustee accepted the only offer available within the very tight timescale imposed by Peter Smith J. Mr Power himself does not suggest that he made any rival offer that the Trustee could have accepted after the making and the withdrawal of his offer of £75,000 on 5^th May 2006. Nor, on Mr Powers own case and on the evidence put in by him in his witness statement of 6^th August 2007 in the Guildford County Court did he get back to the Trustee between 5^th and 12^th May 2006, despite having said that he would be back to the Trustee "shortly" with an improved offer after it had been approved by his legal team.
39. At paragraph 15 of that witness statement Mr Power complains that the Trustee did not contact him and at paragraph 16 states that the reason given by the Trustee for not contacting him was that Mr Power did not return to the Trustee quickly enough with a substantially improved offer. At paragraph 17, Mr Power suggests that the Trustee could easily have applied to the Court for an extension of time which Mr Power feels sure would have been granted.
40. It thus appears from Mr Power's own evidence that the Trustee had no alternative but to take the only offer on the table, apart from the question of whether he could or should have applied for an extension. Given the strict terms imposed by Peter Smith J, I cannot see any possible basis for blaming the Trustee for not having attempted to apply to alter the timetable set for him by the Court. Absent any further or better offer, on a credible basis, from Mr Power, there could not have been any conceivable obligation on the Trustee to make a speculative application, without any real foundation in the evidence, on the basis that an extension would or might produce a better offer.
41. I should add that there is no credible evidence that Mr. Power or anyone else could or would have made Mrs Power's Trustee in Bankruptcy a better offer and actually deliver on it. In his submissions Mr. Power suggested he could have made a better offer with funding from a family company called Bellcove Ltd (which was a party to the proceedings tried by Peter Leaver QC) but candidly admitted that that company could not even afford to pay its own auditors.
42. It follows that on his first and primary ground District Judge Beck cannot be faulted.
43. His second ground of decision was that if Mr Power was going to take any point about the assignment he should have done so during the five day trial before Mr Peter Lever QC. It can be said against this that on a strictly technical basis Mr Peter Lever QC was not, at the trial, exercising bankruptcy jurisdiction, although of course the bankruptcy jurisdiction is part of the Chancery Division of the High Court in which the trial was taking place. This is however a purely technical point and the substance of the matter was that Mr Godfrey at the trial was necessarily relying, for his ability to claim, on the assignment from Mrs Power's Trustee in bankruptcy. If Mr Power as a Defendant wished to challenge the assignment, it was incumbent upon him, in my judgement, to raise the issue at the earliest possible point, since it went to the question of whether Mr Godfrey as Claimant was entitled to bring and continue his claim. It could not possibly be right for Mr Power to leave Mr Godfrey and the other parties to the expense and trouble of a five day trial and then attempt to assert subsequently that Mr Godfrey should have had no title to sue. As a matter of technicality, it may be that the challenge should have been made in the Guildford County Court, but it could from there have been transferred to the High Court, to be heard as a preliminary issue (if it had any credibility) before Mr Peter Leaver QC, since it went to the root of Mr Godfrey's ability to pursue his claim.
44. Mr Power told me very frankly that he had not raised the question of the assignment because he hoped he would win the trial. It would then not have been necessary to challenge the assignment. It seems to me that if Mr Power took that decision on the basis that he hoped to win the trial, it would be extremely unfair and unjust, once he lost the trial, to allow him to have another go, this time by trying to undermine the assignment. To my mind there is, in all the circumstances here, a plain abuse of process within the approach of the House of Lords in Johnson v Gore Wood & Co (a firm) [2002] 2 AC 1 per Lord Bingham at p.31, and District Judge Beck was plainly right in his second ground for rejecting Mr Power's application, although I have put the reasons in a slightly different way.

Section 314 of the Insolvency Act 1986

45. Mr Power wants to take an additional technical point on the Appeal pursuant to section 314 of the Insolvency Act 1986, which deals with the powers of a Trustee in bankruptcy. This point was as far as I can tell, despite Mr. Power's suggestion to the contrary, not raised before District Judge Beck but as a pure point of law I would not prevent Mr Power from raising the point on the Appeal on that basis alone. However, it is a point which, even if it had any validity, is wholly unmeritorious and technical and in my view could undoubtedly would have been cured had it been valid and raised at the correct time.
46. Pursuant to section 314(1)(a) of the Insolvency Act 1986 certain powers are exercisable with the permission of the creditors' committee or the Court and as specified in Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the Insolvency Act 1986. Mr Power relies on paragraph 7 of Schedule 5, Part 1, which refers to a power to make a "compromise or other arrangement" with creditors or persons claiming to be creditors, in respect of bankruptcy debts. This is alleged to be relevant because, as part of the consideration for the assignment, Mr Godfrey agreed not to claim certain sums in the bankruptcy of Mrs Power.
47. Pursuant to section 314(1)(b) of the Insolvency Act 1986, the Trustee had power without the permission of the creditors' committee or the Court to exercise any of the general powers specified in Part II of Schedule 5. Paragraph 9 in Part II sets out a general power of sale in respect of any part of the property for the time being comprised in the bankrupt's estate.
48. It seems to be obvious that the assignment for consideration agreed and executed by Mrs Power's Trustee in bankruptcy in favour of Mr Godfrey was a "sale" within paragraph 9 of Part 2 of Schedule 5 of the Insolvency Act 1986. Accordingly no consent from the creditors' committee or the Court was required. There was a money consideration and other consideration and there was the passing of property.
49. Paragraph 7 of Part I of Schedule 5 in my judgment is designed to deal with situations where the Trustee in bankruptcy enters into some compromise or arrangement with either the creditors generally or some class of creditors in respect of bankruptcy debts, for example with a view to the creditors accepting some proportion of the sums payable so as to terminate the bankruptcy. The fact that one aspect of the consideration for a sale includes a "deal" in respect of a particular creditor's claim does not bring a sale within paragraph 7 of Part I of Schedule 5.
50. In Ramsey v Hartley [1977] 1 WLR 686, the Court of Appeal (at p.694-5) left open the question of whether an assignment without any present cash consideration at all and only in return for a future contingent payment out of net proceeds of proceedings was within the then equivalent power of sale under s.55(1) of the Bankruptcy Act 1914. The argument was that the power must impliedly be limited to "cash sales" because s.56(4) required the permission of the creditors' committee (then known as the committee of inspection) to accept as "the consideration" for the sale " a sum of money payable at a future time". That requirement is now contained in paragraph 3 of part I of Schedule 5 to the Insolvency Act 1986.
51. In that case, the plaintiff objected that the point was raised late and could have been dealt with simply if raised in time. As a result, the defendant agreed that the Court of Appeal could proceed on the basis that the creditors' committee had consented.
52. In the present case, I am also satisfied that the point is raised late and could have been dealt with adequately if raised in time, so that it would be unfair to allow the point to be taken at this stage. However, in case that is thought to be wrong, I will set what I consider to be the correct construction and application of the relevant provisions in so far as they relate to the present facts.
53. Like the Court of Appeal in Ramsey v Hartley I need not rule on the question raised in that case of whether the power of "sale" in para 9 should be regarded as impliedly excluded where the sole consideration is a sum of money payable at a future time. In the present case because there was at least in part a cash consideration (albeit a modest one) and therefore in my judgment undoubtedly a "sale" within paragraph 9 of Part II of Schedule 5 of the Insolvency Act 1986. Paragraph 3 of Part I deals with a power to accept as "the" consideration for the sale a sum of money payable at a future time. It does not apply in a case of mixed consideration such as the present and therefore cannot exclude the power of sale under paragraph 9.
54. Paragraph 3 in my view is a special safeguard where the whole consideration is payable in the future and there is nothing paid at the time of the sale, thus raising in an acute form the creditworthiness of the purchaser and the possible desirability of taking the security referred to in paragraph 3. It should be noted in this connection that this statutory power of sale without the consent of the creditors' committee does not specify any minimum cash element and therefore even if the present assignment had only been for the cash element it would have been within the statutory power, although of course there are other avenues in a proper case for challenging the adequacy of the immediate cash part of the consideration
55. I conclude therefore that there was no need to obtain the consent of either a creditors' committee (which I am told did not exist) or the Court for the assignment. Even if there had been such a requirement, I have absolutely no doubt that the consent would have been given by the Court upon a proper application being made. Had District Judge Beck thought such consent by the Court to be necessary, he would no doubt have given it in the circumstances. On this Appeal, were it necessary, I would give such consent, since I consider that I have seen all the relevant evidence and considered all relevant submissions in relation to the desirability of the assignment.
56. Furthermore, even if a consent had been needed and had not been obtained from the Court, an assignment without such consent did not make the assignment void, but at most merely voidable: Weddell v Pearce & Major [1988] 1 Ch. 26 at 36. Nor would the mere fact that the assignment was without consent enable it to be set aside: Ibid at p.37. There is thus not the slightest chance of a successful avoidance of the assignment here.
57. In conclusion therefore, I consider that Mr Power's late, wholly technical and unmeritorious point under section 314 is wrong in law and even if it were correct would not have any material effect on the facts of the present case.

Conclusion

58. To summarise the result of this Appeal, after rejecting the application for an adjournment, I have transferred Mr Power's validation application from the Guildford County Court to the High Court and dealt with it at the same time as this Appeal. I have rejected the application for validation. I have held that Mr Power has no standing to pursue this Appeal and furthermore has no interest in the underlying claim upon which he bases his interest in the relevant subject-matter and therefore his standing in a wider sense to pursue this Appeal. For both these reasons Mr Power has no standing to pursue the Appeal and the Appeal must be dismissed on that ground alone.
59. Furthermore, and to the extent that it may be necessary, I further hold that there is no meritorious challenge available to the judgment of District Judge Beck below.

Further Directions

60. In order to save costs in this matter which has already involved too much time, trouble and expense for the parties, there will be no need to attend at the formal hand-down of this judgment.
61. Any submissions in relation to any consequential matters such as permission to appeal or costs by any party should be sent to me in writing by first class post (in view of Mr. Power's alleged difficulties with emails), to "Clerk to Mr. Gabriel Moss QC, 3-4 South Square, Gray's Inn, London WC1R 5HP" marked "Urgent and Confidential – Addressee Only", to arrive within 21 days of the formal hand-down, together with any request for an oral hearing in relation to any matters raised in the written arguments sent. My ruling, like this judgment, will be sent to the Respondents' solicitors to forward to the Mr. Power's Trustee in Bankruptcy and to Mr. Power, care of his Trustee, as agreed.
62. Counsel for the Respondents will draw up an order in relation to both the appeal and the validation application after any consequential matters have been resolved.

I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic

____________________________

MR G MOSS QC