England and Wales High Court of Justice

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HM Attorney General v Ebert, Court of Appeal - Administrative Court, January 31, 2000, [2000] EWHC Admin 286

34

Case no: CO/4506/98

IN THE high court of justice
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
(DIVISIONAL COURT)

Royal Courts of justice
Strand, London, wc2a 2ll

Friday, 7th July, 2000

Before:

LORD JUSTICE LAWS

MR JUSTICE SILBER

-------------------

HM ATTORNEY GENERAL

-v-

EBERT
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MR JAY QC and MS AYLING (instructed by the Treasury Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Applicant

THE RESPONDENT APPEARED IN PERSON
____________________

J U D G M E N T
As Approved by the Court

Crown Copyright ©

LAWS LJ:

Introduction
1 HM Attorney General applies to this court for a civil proceedings order to be made against the respondent Gedaljhu Ebert pursuant to s.42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981, whose provisions material to the issues in this case are as follows:
"(1) If, on an application made by the Attorney General under this section, the High Court is satisfied that any person has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground -
(a) instituted vexatious civil proceedings, whether in the High Court or any inferior court, and whether against the same person or against different persons; or
(b) made vexatious applications in any civil proceedings, whether in the High Court or any inferior court, and whether instituted by him or another...
the court may, after hearing that person or giving him an opportunity to be heard, make a civil proceedings order...
(1A) In this section -
`civil proceedings order' means an order that -
(a) no civil proceedings shall without the leave of the High Court be instituted in any court by the person against whom the order is made;
(b) any civil proceedings instituted by him in any court before the making of the order shall not be continued by him without the leave of the High Court; and
(c) no application (other than one for leave under this section) shall be made by him, in any civil proceedings instituted in any court by any person, without the leave of the High Court...
(2) An order under subsection (1) may provide that it is to cease to have effect at the end of a specified period, but shall otherwise remain in force indefinitely.
(3) Leave for the institution or continuance of, or for the making of an application in, any civil proceedings by a person who is the subject of an order for the time being in force under subsection (1) shall not be given unless the High Court is satisfied that the proceedings or application are not an abuse of the process of the court in question and that there are reasonable grounds for the proceedings or application.
...
(4) No appeal shall lie from a decision of the High Court refusing leave required by this section..."

Before us the Attorney was represented by Mr Robert Jay QC. Mr Ebert appeared on his own behalf.

Background
2 The background to the case, as was said by Mr Glendinning of the Treasury Solicitor's Department who swore an affidavit in support of the Attorney's application, "is undeniably of some considerable complexity". It has had to be described in many judgments of the courts already given; as for example in the recent judgment of Simon Brown LJ in this court, which for reasons I shall explain in due course adjourned the application on 31 January 2000; and in the judgment of Laddie J sitting with Neuberger J on 6 March 2000. It is however our duty, now that the application falls to be finally determined, to set out the history again. In the account which follows I have drawn, as did Simon Brown LJ, on Mr Glendinning's succinct narrative.
3 In the late 1980s Mr Ebert embarked upon an enterprise in property development along with a Mr Morris Wolff. It was done through a company of which the two of them were in substance the owners: Europride Ltd. Mr Ebert was the day-to-day manager of the property portfolio. Mr Wolff's task was to arrange the finance. With the benefit of considerable facilities obtained through the offices of a number of banks (including Bank Leumi and Midland Bank plc), Europride acquired a substantial portfolio, amounting to something like 220 properties. The banks, of course, took security for what they advanced, and did so in a number of forms. Midland Bank had joint and several personal guarantees from Mr Eb...