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Scooby-Doo – and the partnership dispute?
March 24, 2025
Darwin Gray’s Commercial Disputes team have recently successfully represented a Defendant in an extraordinary partnership dispute case valued at around £600,000 in the High Court Sitting in Bristol.
The Claimant claimed a 50% share of a partnership involving a hotel and buy to let property, but bizarrely claimed that the whole partnership was arranged and fronted by his identical twin brother, acting as his agent.
Unfortunately for the Claimant, our commercial disputes experts uncovered evidence that the Claimant had completely invented the identical twin brother and then faked his death in India in order to try and claim on multiple life insurance policies. We managed to track down the original fraud investigator and the reports of his investigations from 2008 to 2011, which showed the insurance claims were rejected on the basis that the death of the twin had been faked. However, that did not stop the Claimant persisting with his lies about the fake twin.
Over a 9 day trial in Bristol, the Claimant tried and failed to convince the Court that his fake twin was real and that the official documents such as passports and death certificates were genuine. The Court ultimately decided the case on the basis that the Claimant had been bought out of the partnership in 2011. However, the Court also made a finding of fact that the twin was an invention and went on to decide that even if the Claimant had made out his case on any of the various grounds put forward, the Court would have refused any remedy on the basis that he had lied extensively and encouraged his associates and family members to do the same. The Court made it clear that the Claimant did not have “clean hands” and that any remedy would have been refused on those grounds. The judgment provides a stark reminder to litigants of the potential consequences of lying as the judgment concludes with the Judge referring the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
To paraphrase the end of every episode of Scooby-Doo, he might have got away with it…..but for those meddling solicitors at Darwin Gray. Partner Rhodri Lewis and Senior Associate Fiona Hughes instructed Charlie Newington-Bridges of St Johns Chambers in Bristol as the barrister.
The judgment can be read in full at:
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