English litigant in person loses £33.3 quadrillion High Court claim for breach of arbitration contract

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2022] EWHC 886 (Comm)
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  England and Wales High Court

Sayed Sangamneheri, who appeared as a litigant in person, sought damages from respondents including the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and its president as well as specific persons involved in contracts for the sale of plots of land including arbitrator Jonathan Bellamy.

The case was heard by Deputy Judge Patricia Robertson QC, with Helen Evans QC appearing on behalf of all six named defendants.

Acted in bad faith

The claimant had contracted with a Mr Sonawane for the exchange of plots of land in exchange for a specific weight of fine gold. Under the contract, any dispute was to be settled by arbitration with the seat being Dubai. In April 2015, the claimant commenced arbitration proceedings, with Mr Bellamy appointed as arbitrator, for which he was liable for any costs.

Mr Bellamy withdrew from the appointment after the claimant indicated a desire to raise a claim against him, having taken issue with his decision that an evidential hearing in Dubai was necessary. That claim was dismissed by a High Court judge in July 2017 having found to be totally without merit. Despite the making of an ECRO in January 2018, the claimant continued to make claims in connection with his grievances in respect of the arbitration.

In his latest claim, the claimant alleged that the defendants had acted in bad faith and contrary to the Arbitration Act 1996 by falsely substituting the date on which Mr Bellamy was appointed for a later one to conceal that he was appointed more than 28 days after the request for arbitration was received. Further, Mr Bellamy had resigned without lawful reason and thus the defendants were in breach of their contract to provide arbitral services.

It was also claimed that the Defendants were liable for damages in the sum of approximately £33.3 quadrillion, which the claimant asserted was the value of the gold in issue in his claim against Mr Sonawane. The claimant maintained that he was entitled to rescind the previous judgments of the High Court on the basis that they had been obtained by fraud.

Utterly hopeless

In her judgment, Deputy Judge Robertson observed: “The claimant’s oral submissions proceeded on the misconceived basis that the test for dishonesty is purely objective, such that it would be sufficient, for example, to show that the date on which he relies for the false date point was incorrect, without any need to show that the person who put that date on the form knew it was false, believed it was false, or made the statement recklessly without caring whether it was true or false. That is not the law.”

Addressing whether the earlier judgments were able to be set aside, she began: “I have no hesitation in concluding that the claimant’s contention that he is entitled to rescind any of the judgments that bind him is utterly hopeless. He has no real prospect of making out any of the necessary criteria.”

She explained further: “The fact that the date of 28 April 2015 appears, rather than 23 April 2015, matters not a jot. The idea that, somehow anticipating that the Claimant would one day take the thoroughly bad point of law he has now taken, someone at CIArb put that date on the form in order to cover up this non-existent procedural breach, is obvious nonsense. So, too, is the suggestion that the form was then dishonestly concealed from the Claimant.”

Deputy Judge Robertson concluded: “The claims are not only, in large measure, res judicata, but so far as that is not the case, they are an abuse of process, based on a broad, merits-based judgment and taking account of the public and private interests involved. In any event, the new elements of the claims have no real prospects, for the reasons I have given above.”

Addressing an application by the defendants for a further ECRO, she added: “I have no confidence that my efforts to explain these matters to the Claimant, including by way of this Judgment, will cause him to alter his pattern of behaviour. There is every reason to expect that, unless an ECRO is made, he will continue. It is, quite frankly, in his own interests that he be restrained if he is incapable (as it seems) of restraining himself, since the only result of these repeated attempts at litigating these matters is that he is incurring ever greater liabilities for costs.”

The claim was therefore held to have failed. At the request of the defendants, the judgment was referred to the Attorney General so that consideration could be given to an indefinite civil proceedings order.