Judgment Hand Down: Grosvenor Property Developers Limited (in liquidation) v Portner Law Limited

In the case of Grosvenor Property Developers Limited (in liquidation) v Portner Law Limited, Saira Salimi sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge has handed down the third in a trilogy of judgments. This followed the quantum judgment ([2026] EWHC (Ch)), by which she ordered Portner Law to pay £2.1m in respect of its dishonest assistance in the misappropriation of £2.4m of the Claimant company’s money ([2025] EWHC 2362 (Ch)). The Defendant had sought permission to appeal her quantum judgment; a stay of execution; and time to pay. It also disputed the Joint Liquidators’ application for costs on the indemnity basis and interest at an enhanced investment rate, arguing that interest should be payable at a commercial rate of 2.5%.  The Deputy Judge dismissed the Defendant’s’ applications. Regarding the Defendant’s argument interest should be awarded at the commercial rate, she held:

This cannot be right in circumstances where creditors were promised an investment rate of return. The rate promised by Mr Varma to the investors whom he defrauded was 7.5%. The money that he fraudulently obtained was laundered through the Defendant’s client account, and it seems to me that the appropriate rate up to 13 November 2023 is the 7.5% that he promised them.

Regarding the basis of costs, the Deputy Judge held as follows:

I accept that dishonesty will not necessarily always attract indemnity costs. But there is force in the Claimant’s submission that this is dishonesty by an officer of the court, in a position of regulatory responsibility in his firm. The Defendant does not argue that dishonesty is a factor that I should not take into account, and I do so.  I also consider that the conduct of the Defendant in this case during the litigation has been very poor. It has made no genuine effort to engage with ADR or settle the proceedings, and persisted in resisting the claim even though there was clear evidence of dishonesty. That seems to me to be a clear example of pursuing “entirely bad” arguments, and combined with the lack of any attempt to settle is enough to take this case out of the norm. In the light of that, I accept the Claimant’s submission that indemnity costs are appropriate for the whole of the claim. 

The Claimant had beaten a Part 36 offer made almost two years before the liability trial so the Deputy Judge applied the four awards under r. 36.17. The total liability including payments on account of costs (excluding interest on costs) amounts to just under £3.6m.

Rory Brown of South Square (leading Andrew Shipley of Selborne Chambers) represented the Claimant company at trial, instructed by its Joint Liquidators Paul Atkinson and Glyn Mummery of FRP Advisory LLP and gunnercooke.