“One of the objects to be achieved by striking out a claim is to stop the proceedings and prevent the further waste of precious resources on proceedings which the claimant has forfeited the right to have determined.”
“Introductions: The Client shall pay the Company fees resulting from any employment as set out in Clause 2 [i.e. where the claimant has introduced a successful applicant for a role] where, 5.1 An Applicant has been submitted to a Client and no initial employment results, but the Applicant is subsequently employed by the Client up to twelve months after the initial introduction date or the Applicant introduces further Applicants to the Client resulting in employment by the Client;”
“The Client shall pay the Company fees resulting from any employment as set out in Clause 2 where…”
“no term will be implied if the contract is effective without it”. (2) This is not a term which is “so obvious that it goes without saying”
“David finally advised you that there was very little evidence of what work had been done by Harrington-Scott to warrant the substantial payment and whilst his instruct was not to be considered a termination of the contract you were asked to stop all activities and spending until the two of you clarified the whole contract. David left the discussion understanding that you had agreed.”
“I am now giving you the opportunity to rectify the situation and provide the proposal as was requested and agreed between David and yourself. I urgently await your response failing which we will examine our available remedies to otherwise recover our position from Harrington- Scott.”
‘Appendix 1: Kinross Russia Job Requirements’ and the other is headed: ‘Appendix 1: Twenty-One Job Profiles for Kinross, Russia’
“125 NOT 32 searches...sorry....it was 12 (32 was the number of people to be placed)”
“I am advised by TV [Mr Vickers] that the Basic Element Group instructed the Claimant to do 12 searches for 32 positions in 2007-2008.”
“In hindsight, we could and probably should have invoiced for more than 15 hires at this point.”
“At the time however I did not drill down into how Mike had calculated this invoice, I just wanted to get on with doing the work. We also knew that there would be a reconciliation exercise at the end of the project, so it was not at that point paramount to get the first invoice to cover the maximum fees it could have covered.”
“HSL has had good years and bad years financially. 2010 was a difficult year because Kinross had breached their three contracts with HSL and were refusing to pay. The Kinross Contracts were the main sources of income for HSL in those years”
“We now understand that the candidates for all of the original 21 positions we were instructed to recruit for by Kinross, have now been satisfactorily filled.”
“At the time Dr Cowley and I agreed the ERR contract, we were agreed that the number of people required to fill these roles was set out in the Expat Release List. That number was 32.”
“The top category of ‘Must Have’ are to remain”
“It was therefore very important to me to keep the ERR contract on track and not to jeopardise it at all”
“I will accept a written or verbal confirmation from you regarding agreement to our Ts and Cs and invoice payment.”
“I don't understand why you are sending an invoice for the Russian RVP role. I thought that we have a guaranteed replacement at no charge?? Before we proceed any further I need to confirm this. Thank you.”
“Kinross did not ask me to find a like-for-like replacement for Dr Cowley. Instead, they asked me to fill a new job title, that was substantively different to the old job description, and this was therefore a new assignment, on the same terms as the original approved RVP contract.”
“Interest will be payable by the Client on overdue invoices at a rate of 2.00% for each period of fourteen days' delayed payment.”
“… that, in common with competitor international recruitment companies, we would face significant problems with our business if we were not paid on time” because the claimant “… incurred [considerable expenses in sourcing candidates] upfront and needed to be reimbursed promptly in order to avoid serious cashflow issues”
“… approximately 30% of the work required to be performed by [the claimant] under the ERR contract, was conducted from [the claimant’s] satellite office in Moscow which was set up specifically to perform the ERR contract (at a cost to [the claimant] of US$788,029 ). Further [the claimant] appointed Mr Diedrik Arnold … (a Russian speaker) on or around12 March 2019 . Mr Arnold was relocated to Moscow in order to manage [the claimant’s] performance of the ERR contract in Moscow.”
“Mike is now no longer with us and I cannot ask him to take me through his calculations, nor can I look at his records”; and “I cannot add anything to this as the documents were prepared by Mike. As Mike is no longer alive, I cannot ask him to elaborate this in any more detail.”
“This is the FOURTH email containing lists [sic] a summary of the costs incurred by HSL [the claimant] in first implementing, then running and resourcing recruitment from Moscow for Kinross candidates in 2009”
“As I mentioned earlier .. , after [the claimant] made its assignment in 2010 (see attached) it then made a bad debt provision in the [the claimant’s] accounts in the UK in 2012.”
“I suggest you all keep your heads down tomorrow as the proverbial is really going to hit the fan. I suspect we will have rarely seen a response of the like.”
“The incompleteness of data and the difficulties of interpreting what survives are frequent problems with which the civil courts and tribunals wrestle on a daily basis.”
“The attempted perversion of justice is the very antithesis of parties coming before the court on an equal footing.”
“It seems unlikely that anyone else other than Kinross Russia would have given this instruction to THR to recruit the same people as Kinross had instructed HSL to recruit for them to replace 21 expatriate employees in Kupol Russia with specific names.”
“Just in case, here is the assignment letter and 2012 accounts. As I mentioned earlier … , after [the claimant] made its assignment in 2010 (see attached) it then made a bad debt provision in the [claimant’s] accounts in the UK in 2012.”
“Upon the appointment of a candidate into a role contained in the ERR Contract, [the claimant] became entitled to receive payment of its fees under the ERR Contract, by virtue of the fact that the ERR Contract was made on a Retained Assignment basis, as set out in paragraph 31 (1) above.”
“This, therefore, is the first way in which [the claimant] would be entitled to receive its fees. This is the ‘normal’ way that [the claimant] would be entitled to receive its fees in the event that the search and hiring process was successful”
“It is accepted that on the express terms of the contract that the Claimant would not be entitled to receive fees under either of the First or Second Ways (the more ‘typical’ routes to payment) in respect of either the SVP … or any of the ERR Contract roles”