Property developers Nick and Christian Candy have won a ruling striking out a strongly refuted £1.5bn lawsuit brought against them, which Nick Candy’s lawyer branded an “attempted shakedown”.
High Court deputy master Jefferis granted summary judgments to the Candy brothers and fellow defendants in what he described as a “remarkable” claim for a “huge sum” brought by Michael Antony Brown. The claim related to an alleged deal to sell Nick Candy’s penthouse apartment in One Hyde Park, SW1, for £175m.
The deputy master said: “In my judgment, the claim against the first defendant [Nick Candy] is bound to fail. There is no merit at all in the claim against the second defendant [Christian Candy].”
“All these claims against all the defendants are without any merit at all.”
Accusations
According to the claim form issued in the case, Brown made accusations of “malicious sabotage” and “imbecilic behaviour” against the Candy brothers and various other parties that allegedly led to the property transaction, said to involve a member of the Saudi royal family, falling through.
Brown alleged it fell through because of actions by Nick Candy and his associates that were “insulting, derogatory and undermining”.
However, barrister David Lascelles, representing Nick Candy, said the “wild allegations” against his client were “strongly denied”, and told the deputy master that all Brown had done to pursue the case was to “court publicity” while seeking repeated adjournments of the defendants’ strike-out application.
He said: “The inevitable inference is that these claims are an attempted shakedown.”
Earlier, the deputy master declined to further adjourn the hearing on the basis of an e-mail from Brown, explaining his absence from court on the basis that he was “fearful for his safety”.
Ruling that this was not a reasonable reason for Brown not to attend court, he said: “I do not consider that he can properly consider himself fearful for his safety.”
Absurd claim
In a statement released on behalf of Nick Candy, a spokesman said: “This was a hopeless claim from the outset with no reasonable grounds whatsoever for bringing any kind of case against the defendants. After multiple attempts by Mr Brown to delay today’s hearing, we are pleased that the master has decided to stop this absurd claim from proceeding any further.
“This has been an astonishing abuse of the court and judicial process. Mr Brown has deliberately used these proceedings to bring improper and abusive claims and to launder defamatory allegations in order to elicit vast sums of money.
“Nick Candy now looks forward to recovering all costs associated with defending this claim from Mr Brown and will commence bankruptcy proceedings against him if required.”
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