“I have decided that I can’t take part … the thought of the court environment is already giving me anxiety and I feel like I’m going to suffer panic attacks again. I will see my doctor on Wednesday and provide the necessary letter that explains I’m not capable of being put under that sort of pressure or environment. I simply can’t put myself through that for anyone. Regards, Nicholas”
“Pls remember. I’ve got nothing on my name. All in trust. Because I always knew this day was coming, because you told me so”
“I have recently been informed by Kingsley Napley and Hill Dickinson (the solicitors representing the respective Parties) that the Court intends to make an Order that my report should be finalised by 12 July. The Order also increases the scope of my instructions, requiring a further valuation and further tax work from a colleague. The purpose of this letter is to explain why it will not be possible to meet that deadline and why a further extension will be required…By way of overview, this is a large and complex matter, involving around 30 (interconnected) companies held in complex and different ownership structures and which themselves own around 100 properties which have been subject to separate instruction of a Single Joint Expert Property Valuer (“the Property SJE”). It is also important to note that my work is closely aligned with that of the Property SJE, given the valuation of the properties is highly relevant to the value of various of the entities…Given where we are currently at (and as can be seen from the above, we have sought to consider information as soon as possible after being provided) there is absolutely no way that we would be in a position to provide a final report by 12 July (approximately five weeks away)… Furthermore, our report is going to be long and detailed with a significant number of schedules across all the various entities. In my opinion, it will be crucial the respective Parties and their instructing solicitors have sufficient time to consider and raise questions, and then for us to respond to them. On the basis that there is no way that I can prepare an accurate and complete report by 12 July, I would therefore request the Court to provide a significant extension to that deadline… my suggestion would perhaps be to early/ mid-September to ensure that there is no risk of that later deadline being missed.”
“I decided to make my own priority. I didn’t tell anybody because nobody asked”
“There are things you can lie about but other things you have got to prove”
“Lets just say that Stalo has given you£2K last night…hence why she wants the searches put on…its more convincing!”
“We ceased trading in 2001. I wrapped the business up. We got no equity out of it…Christofis did own 2 houses but definitely not any factories or warehouses”
“What shall I get Bellevue to value both units at?? Am with them now.” and the husband responds 9 minutes later with: “£325k and£265k …Well that’s what we would like … but they have to be realistic…ask them what they think a forced value is?.... not a market value!….that’s what we want! Tell them there is no planning, etc. … tell them all the bad points, and ask them to make a pointof it!”
“Lets talk about my shares first. They are going to Lel (Yiassoulla), Marianna and Nick (Nicholas)”
“As regards the contention of the plaintiff that the transactions between himself, Auto-Finance, Ltd. and the defendants were a "sham", it is, I think, necessary to consider what, if any, legal concept is involved in the use of this popular and pejorative word. I apprehend that, if it has any meaning in law, it means acts done or documents executed by the parties to the "sham" which are intended by them to give to third parties or to the court the appearance of creating between the parties legal rights and obligations different from the actual legal rights and obligations (if any) which the parties intend to create. One thing I think, however, is clear in legal principle, morality and the authorities (see Yorkshire Railway Wagon Co. v. Maclure ((1882) 21 Ch D 309 ); Stoneleigh Finance, Ltd. v. Phillips ([1965] 1 All ER 513 ,[1965] 2 QB 537 ), that for acts or documents to be a "sham", with whatever legal consequences follow from this, all the parties thereto must have a common intention that the acts or documents are not to create the legal rights and obligations which they give the appearance of creating.”
“The two situations (valid trust and sham trust) do not fall into combination. The finding that the purported trust is void as a sham does not amount to an invalidation of a trust. It is not the trust as such which is a sham. There is no trust to be a sham. It is the trust documentation that is the sham. To find that a document is a sham, the focus is on the intentions of the relevant parties. In Hitch v Stone[2001] STC 214 at paragraph 66 Arden LJ put it this way: “The test of intention is subjective. The parties must have intended to create different rights and obligations from those appearing from (say) the relevant document, and in addition they must have intended to give a false impression of those rights and obligations to third parties.”
“I guess what we need to discuss in the near future (2022?) is how best you can extract large sums in a tax efficient manner”
“In the present case, the settlement was in fact executed simply by Cantrust. In particular, Mr Russo was not a party to it. It took effect by way of a resettlement by Cantrust of assets held by it under the prior trusts. In creating the new settlement, Cantrust was exercising powers it regarded itself as having under those trusts, and no pleaded challenge is raised either to the validity of those trusts (it is not suggested they were shams) or to the exercise of the power to resettle their assets. Given those circumstances … I am unable to accept the proposition that the settlement created in March 1999 was a sham. If the only person executing the document which created the settlement intended it to be a genuine settlement — as Cantrust did — the acts or intentions of others cannot have made it a sham … [W]hatever may have been the private intentions of the Russo family, if Cantrust intended the settlement to be a genuine one the settlement must have resulted in the resettled assets becoming held on the trusts that Cantrust regarded itself as creating and which, on the face of it, it did create.” “It will be appreciated that the issue which Rimer J was there addressing is not on all fours with the issue with which I am currently concerned, but Rimer J's analysis and decision on the point, with which I agree, seem to me to be not merely consistent with the view to which I have come but indeed to be supportive of it. “49. The corollary of all this can be stated very simply. Whatever the settlor or anyone else may have intended, and whatever may have happened since it was first created, a trust will not be a sham — in my judgment cannot as a matter of law be a sham — if either: “i) the original trustee(s), or “ii) the current trustee(s), “were not, because they lacked the relevant knowledge and intention, party to the sham at the time of their appointment. In the first case, the trust will never have been a sham.
“While it may be the case that the principles discussed in A v A are applicable in some categories of new trustee appointment, they are not very easy to apply in isolation from the surrounding circumstances.”) Rather, it is an application of the principle that the court considers the common intentions of the settlor and trustee, objectively ascertained, and only goes behind the objective manifestation of such common intention in specific circumstances (such as where there is a sham). Applying that principle, the transfer of assets to W cannot have had the effect of requiring H and W to hold the shares in AB Holdings on the terms of the Trust Deed—she did not accept her appointment on that basis. Rather, it is plain from the contemporaneous documentary evidence that she understood – not least because H and his advisors were telling her so – that the whole family could benefit from the assets, and in particular that either H, W, or both of them could become tax exiles and draw down millions from the structure. In other words, she accepted appointment as trustee of a trust, but not of the trust which H says was established by the Trust Deed. Indeed, the contrary conclusion would be perverse. It would require the Court to accept the proposition that an innocent W could – by virtue of her own innocence – be deprived of her sharing claim to the assets held within the structure, simply by H procuring that she be appointed trustee. In those circumstances, W cannot be “estopped” – as H claims – from calling the (“restated”) Trust Deed into question. It would not be unconscionable for her to do so—quite the opposite. Indeed, insofar as an estoppel might arise from the appointment of an ‘innocent’ trustee to a sham structure, it prevents the shammer from resiling from the document, rather than to saddle the innocent trustee with terms the shammer never intended.”