Gottlieb Cohen Foundation (USA) t/a Capitana Seas 2008 Trust (USA) v General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited & Anor [2026] EWHC 2078 (Ch)

[2026] EWHC 2078 (Ch)

Case No CH-2025-000323

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES

CHANCERY APPEALS (ChD)

Venue 7 Rolls Building, Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1NL

Date Friday, 31 July 2026

Before

Mr Justice Marcus Smith

Between

GOTTLIEB COHEN FOUNDATION (USA) T/A CAPITANA SEAS 2008 TRUSTAppellant

for The Appellant did not appear and was not represented.

Mr J Smouha KC and Ms L Aboagye (instructed by Freshfields) for First Respondent/Applicant.

for The Second Respondent did not appear and was not represented.

Hearing Hearing dates: 31/7/26

APPROVED RULING

Friday, 31 July 2026

MR JUSTICE MARCUS SMITH:

[1]I have before me an application by General Dynamics United Kingdom limited – GDUK – to strike out an appeal arising out of proceedings that I shall, for reasons which will become apparent, refer to as the collateral proceedings. The collateral proceedings came before HHJ Parfitt who struck them out. There was then an application for permission to appeal the order of HHJ Parfitt, which is formally before this Court, and which has generated GDUK’s application to strike out the appeal.

[2]Before I proceed further with the substance of that application, I should record those parties who are and those parties who are not before me. Before me today, I have GDUK, represented by Mr Smouha KC and Ms Aboagye, instructed by Freshfields LLP. That is the only party represented before me, although there are two other parties who have an interest in the application and the collateral proceedings. The first party, which I can deal with very briefly, is the State of Libya. The State of Libya has been notified of the collateral proceedings and the application before me today, and has deliberately and for entirely understandable reasons, absented itself.

[3]The position is that the State of Libya was ignorant of the collateral proceedings until those proceedings were drawn to the attention of the State of Libya by GDUK’s solicitors. In this regard, it is appropriate to refer to two communications. The first is an email from the State of Libya’s solicitors, Squire Patton Boggs, to GDUK’s solicitors, Freshfields, stating as follows:

“Dear Freshfields LLP We refer to your emails dated 6 July and 8 July 2026 in respect of Capitana’s application dated 20 November 2025 for permission to appeal the order of HHJ Parfitt dated 12 November 2025 (the “PTA Application”), and GDUK’s application dated 26 May 2026 for the PTA application to be struck out (the ‘Strike-Out Application’). We confirm that GDUK’s written submissions and the Strike Out Application bundle was forwarded to our client earlier this week. “We write to confirm that whilst we are not instructed by the State of Libya in respect of these proceedings, we are instructed to confirm that: (1) Libya has not instructed PCP to represent them in these proceedings, nor has Libya instructed any other firm; and (2) Libya does not currently intend to participate in the proceedings and therefore does not anticipate being represented at the hearing before Mr Justice Marcus Smith at the end of July 2026. Notwithstanding this position, Libya reserves its rights to make submissions, attend the hearing and/or take any action it considers necessary or appropriate as matters develop.”

[4]That, if I may say so, is an entirely responsible course for the State of Libya and its lawyers to adopt. They have chosen, understandably, not to incur the costs of appearing today. That is because the collateral proceedings are truly collateral, so far as the State of Libya is concerned. They appear to have been brought into those proceedings unknowingly and by what can only be described as a misrepresentation to the court who heard those matters. I will have a little bit more to say about that in due course.

[5]Consistently with this email between the solicitors to the parties, the State of Libya, via its solicitors Squire Patton Boggs, wrote to the Court on 10 July 2026, explaining its position, and I have seen and read that communication. Accordingly, I conclude and so find that the State of Libya has full knowledge of these matters and has, for reasons that are entirely understandable, decided that it is not worthwhile participating in this matter today.

[6]I turn, then, to the other party not present, which is a Gottlieb Cohen Foundation (USA), trading as “Capitana Seas”. Capitana Seas has deliberately absented itself from this hearing. The hearing was notified to it, and the materials underlying the application, as well as the application itself, were served on Capitana Seas on 6 July 2026. It is clear that Capitana Seas have received and considered the materials underlying this application because, on 29 July 2026, the Court received a substantive communication from Capitana Seas, dealing with the matters raised by the application, and clearly in response to it.

[7]It is appropriate to spend a little bit of time on the addressees of this email as well as the sender. Turning to the addressees, in addition to my clerk and to representatives of Freshfields, there are two email addresses. One is generalcounsel@painecrowandpartners.com and the other is post@capitanaseas.com. Both of these email addresses feature in the history of this matter, which, as again I will come to describe, is a long standing history. The painecrowandpartners.com email address has been used certainly before the hearing and judgment before HHJ Parfitt. This is a firm which, if it exists at all, purported to act for the State of Libya and caused two consent orders to be made, which were presented to the Court as consent orders by the State of Libya, when in fact they were no such thing.

[8]The second email address, capitanaseas.com has featured even more extensively in the history of this matter, and it is worth spending a little time as to how that email address and the persons behind it featured. If I can turn to certain applications made to the Land Registry, my point can be made good. By an application to change the register form AP1 addressed to His Majesty’s Land Registry, an application was made concerning a property, which is at the heart of this application and the collateral proceedings. The property in question is a property at 7 Winnington Close, London N2 0UA. I shall refer to that property as “the property” and it is the subject of enforcement and sale proceedings that have been brought by GDUK. Again, I will say more about those in a moment.

[9]Turning back to the application to the Land Registry, what one sees there is that it is an application that is made by the Trustee of Capitana Seas 2008 Trust. This appears to be an overseas entity incorporated in the state of South Dakota, USA, but it has, it would appear, a UK representative office: Capitana Seas Limited, Bell Yard, Strand, London, England. The application is signed by a non-conveyancer, who is described as an “LG Childs” and who is said to be trustee of the Capitana Seas 2008 Trust.

[10]The email address which is provided in the application is the email address that I have already referred to, so there is obviously a link between Mr LG Childs and Capitana Seas. Mr LG Childs is a reference to a Mr Gayle-Childs. That matters, for reasons, again, which I will come to, but it is quite clear that there is a person, Mr Gayle-Childs sitting behind the entity that is Capitana Seas. The final addition to the question of representation before me today is the sender of the submissions on behalf of Capitana Seas.

[11]There has been a morphing of the identity of the parties, in that the claimant in the collateral proceedings and the respondent to this application is now said to be Gottlieb Cohen Foundation (USA), trading as Capitana Seas 2008 Trust (USA). The communications that the Court and GDUK have received are not signed by Mr Gayle-Childs, but by an Abraham Gottlieb, the assistant general counsel of what would appear to be the Gottlieb Cohen Foundation (USA).

[12]Two points need to be made in relation to this. First, and the point that is of most importance at this stage in my ruling, is that it is quite clear that Capitana Seas – as I shall continue to refer to them – are aware of not only the making of this application and its timing, but also of all of the materials that are before me. I should say that that includes lately filed materials that are responsive to the 29 July 2026 submissions from Capitana Seas.

[13]Mr Smouha KC explained to me that he and those behind him considered it appropriate that their response – or their client’s response – to the Capitana submissions should be put in writing, even though it was late in the day, and sent to Capitana Seas so that they could not claim to be caught by surprise. That was entirely the right course, and I find that there has been notification of all material matters to Capitana Seas, entitling them to understand what is going on and enabling them to be, if they so chose before the Court on this day.

[14]That brings me to the second subsidiary point, which is who actually is behind Capitana Seas. It seems to me that, notwithstanding the denials in the recent submissions from Capitana Seas, that person remains Mr Gayle-Childs. I will come back to the significance of this, but it seems to me that the fact of the continued use of email addresses involving and implicating Mr Gayle-Childs in the communications from the Gottlieb Cohen Family Foundation, show that there is a nexus between the two.

[15]I refuse to accept and find to the contrary that Mr Gayle-Childs has not absented himself from the conduct of the affairs of Capitana Seas, but that the Gottlieb Cohen Foundation (USA) represents simply another layer superimposed upon the Capitana Seas structure, which I cannot say anything more about because it is so untransparent, and because there is no one from Capitana Seas or indeed, to the extent different, the Gottlieb Cohen Foundation to explain matters to me today. Accordingly, I find that this matter has been properly constituted, and that there is no reason other than the deliberate desire to absent themselves for Capitana Seas to be away from the Court today. That is important because the application is, of course, to strike out Capitana Seas’ application for permission to appeal which is before me today.

[16]GDUK is a judgment creditor of the State of Libya in the sum of around £28 million. GDUK has obtained a final charging order and an order for sale and possession over the property to enable it to enforce the judgment debt against the property. The property, as I have stated, is a London property situated in Winnington Close. Libya unsuccessfully opposed the making of a final charging order. That matter was litigated in the High Court, appealed to the Court of Appeal where the appeal was dismissed, with permission being refused by the Supreme Court. GDUK eventually obtained an order for the sale of the property on 10 October 2025 and has had conduct of the sale since then.

[17]Until 23 May 2012, Capitana Seas was the registered owner of the property In Libya v Capitana Seas

[2012] EWHC 602

Comm, Popplewell J found that the property was wrongfully and unlawfully purchased with funds belonging to the State of Libya, and the beneficial interest in the property was held by Capitana Seas as constructive trustee for Libya. Capitana Seas was not represented at the hearing before Popplewell J, who concluded that Saadi Gaddafi, the sole ultimate beneficial owner of Capitana Seas, was aware of the proceedings such that he could have intervened, but a decision had been taken by both Capitana Seas and Mr Gaddafi not to resist the relief sought by Libya. I should say that there may be other Capitana entities. I am using the rubric “Capitana Seas” to embrace all Capitana entities without differentiating between them for ease of reading and simplicity.

[18]Following Popplewell J’s ruling, the legal estate in the property was transferred to Libya on 23 May 2012. At that point, that is to say nearly 15 years ago, the role of Capitana Seas should have fallen away. The question of the enforcement of GDUK’s judgment debt was a matter entirely between it and the State of Libya. Nevertheless, Mr Gayle-Childs, the person I find to be sitting behind Capitana Seas and purporting to represent them at the time, made a number of applications in order to overturn Popplewell J’s decision.

[19]Mr Gayle-Childs claimed to be the director and ultimate beneficiary of Capitana Seas. Through Capitana Seas, he made a number of applications to have the Popplewell judgment set aside. Those applications failed at various levels. Initially, the application was refused by Knowles J, but the matter went before Flaux LJ in November 2018, where the application for permission to appeal Knowles J’s judgment was refused and dismissed as being totally without merit and as an abuse of process.

[20]Enforcement of the judgment against the property has, however, not proceeded with the ease that one might expect given these rulings. Notwithstanding the fact that it is difficult to see, indeed impossible to see, what standing Capitana Seas can have in GDUK’s enforcement actions against the property, nevertheless, Capitana Seas has interfered in the process, to the prejudice and detriment of GDUK, by constituting and implementing what I have termed “collateral proceedings”. What those collateral proceedings seek to do is to relitigate the question of title as regards Libya’s title versus Capitana Seas’ alleged claim to title over the property. These proceedings are constituted as between Capitana Seas as claimant and the State of Libya as defendant.

[21]There are two matters which I will expand upon in due course regarding these proceedings. First of all, these collateral proceedings have been commenced against the State of Libya without its knowledge, using an apparent firm of solicitors purportedly acting for and on behalf of the State of Libya. As the email that I read out at the beginning of this ruling makes clear, the first that the State of Libya heard of these proceedings was when notified of them by GDUK. The second point to make in relation to these proceedings is that two consent orders were procured from judges sitting in the County Court purportedly consented to by the State of Libya.

[22]Again, the State of Libya has only found out about these after the event. These are clearly significant and material irregularities which, in and of themselves, cause serious question over the propriety and legitimacy of the collateral proceedings. But the most important and fundamental point is that the collateral proceedings actually constitute a collateral attack and a re-litigation of matters that have been decided by the courts as long ago as 2012, when Popplewell J determined the matter of title, and the appeal process in regard to that decision was exhausted.

[23]Courts look with disapprobation, for obvious reasons, on re-litigation of matters that have been decided. That is why I have termed these proceedings “collateral”. The question of their propriety was raised and came before HHJ Parfitt. The matter was raised by, unsurprisingly, GDUK, who sought to be joined to those proceedings. By an order consequential upon a judgment made on 12 November 2025, HHJ Parfitt determined, first, that GDUK should be joined to the proceedings for the purposes of making the application to strike out, and then he struck out the claim and all orders made therein, save those relating to the application to strike out.

[24]In particular, two consent orders, one an order of DDJ Britlin and one and order of HHJ Gerald, the first dated 28 November 2024, and the second dated 11 July 2025, were set aside as being made without jurisdiction, nullities and based upon an abuse of process. That was because they were not, in any way, shape or form, consent orders involving the engaged mind of the State of Libya. They had been procured from the Court by what can only be described as deception and misrepresentation. Capitana Seas seeks permission to appeal this order of HHJ Parfitt. GDUK seeks to strike the appeal out in limine.

[25]For reasons that are obvious, I conclude that the appeal should, in its entirety, be struck out as an abuse of process on the grounds of collateral attack and re-litigation alone. These courts will not tolerate collateral attacks on decisions of courts of competent jurisdiction. The issue of the title to the property has been conclusively determined by courts of England and Wales, and it would not only be wrong to reopen these proceedings but impermissible for a court in this jurisdiction to do so. That is what HHJ Parfitt found, and that is what I, entirely independently, find for myself. It follows that the application by GDUK succeeds on this ground alone.

[26]However, Mr Smouha KC urged me to say something about the additional grounds as to why this order is appropriate. There are four such grounds. First of all, if and to the extent that Capitana Seas is the instrument of Mr Gayle-Childs, then these proceedings could not and should not have been brought save with the consent of the Court. Mr Gayle-Childs is a convicted fraudster, having served – but now at liberty – a prison sentence in the UK, who is subject to a civil proceedings order preventing him, but not successfully, from instituting civil proceedings without the leave of the High Court. So far as the court is aware, no such leave has been given, and Mr Gayle-Childs has been pursuing a multitude of claims, including the collateral proceedings, which seek to reverse the effect of the judgment of Popplewell J, and to re-articulate the beneficial interest in the property which Popplewell J found to be that of the State of Libya.

[27]The position as regards Mr Gayle-Childs’ involvement is, unfortunately, not very transparent. That is not surprising, given the way in which Capitana Seas have conducted themselves throughout the history of these proceedings. But it does mean that I regard this as a secondary and not a primary ground for making the order that I have done. It seems to me, however, that as a matter of fact Mr Gayle-Childs is continuing to pull the strings of Capitana Seas and that he is doing so in breach of an order requiring him to obtain the consent of the Court before initiating such proceedings. Therefore, the collateral proceedings are, for this reason alone, an abuse of process and a nullity. So, that is a second reason why the application of GDUK should succeed.

[28]Secondly, as I have indicated, at least two consent orders have been procured which were not genuine. This is a serious matter, of course. Consent orders are made regularly by the courts. To procure one without both parties to the order being in proper agreement as to the making of the order is a very serious matter. Just to flesh this out, between 21 August 2025 and 23 August 2025, Freshfields, acting for GDUK, received five messages from “post@capitanaseas.com” making a range of assertions. These assertions included that the property is, and has been at all material times, the beneficial property of Capitana Seas; that Libya procured the title of the property by fraud in the High Court proceedings by way of a corrupt lawyer misleading the Court; that Libya had admitted, in the Britlin consent order, that it had fraudulently misled the Court and that it had never beneficially owned the property (here, one can see the importance of the fraudulent consent order and the reason why the procuring of it was so serious); that Libya admitted that the Britlin consent order vested the title of the property in Capitana Seas, and this finding was purportedly reinforced by the second fraudulent consent order, the Gerald consent order; and alleging that GDUK’s obtaining of an interim charging order and the final charging order therefore constituted a direct and egregious fraud on the Court.

[29]All of these matters exacerbate the seriousness of the collateral attack on prior decisions of this Court. Again, this seems to me to constitute a separate and self-standing reason for the striking out of this appeal, which is, in effect, mirroring what HHJ Parfitt did in striking out the proceedings. Related to the procuring of consent orders is the fact that Libya had no contemporary involvement in the collateral proceedings at all, despite being named as a defendant. I have already referred to the communications from Libya’s lawyers, Squire Patton Boggs, indicating that this is the case. So, for those two reasons, it seems to me that, in addition to the primary reason, the order that is sought by GDUK is the appropriate one to make.

[30]The final point on this is the question of sanctions. Capitana Seas has suggested that the enforcement process by GDUK infringes various UK, EU and UN sanctions. Now, that, even if it were plausible, seems to me in the first instance to be a matter for the enforcing party and their lawyers. I am in no doubt that GDUK and their lawyers would not infringe sanctions that were applicable if they were engaged in enforcement against the property.

[31]But, again, it seems that this point has been put the wrong way round. The property has never been subject to sanctions. On the other hand, Capitana Seas has. In GDUK’s supplemental skeleton delivered in response to Capitana Seas’ submissions of 29 July, this point was made good. What is there said is that contrary to Capitana Seas’ submissions, the property itself has never been designated by way of sanctions. Capitana Seas, however, was and remains subject to EU and UK sanctions. It has not been designated by the UN but it has been designated by these two other entities. It, rather than the property, is subject to the question of sanctions. This point is, accordingly, an interesting but irrelevant one since I have already found that Capitana Seas has no business in engaging with the enforcement process against the property. It follows that the fact that it is subject to a sanctions regime is similarly irrelevant.

[32]Accordingly, for these three reasons, I accede to the application, and I strike out the appeal. I make clear that, in doing so, I am dismissing the application for permission to appeal, and I am dismissing it on the grounds that it is totally without merit. I make clear that I am not deciding the granular aspects of the application for permission to appeal. It seems to me that it would be to lend undue weight to the importance of those points were I to do so. The reason I am dismissing the application for permission to appeal follows from the reasoning that I have already articulated as to why the application of GDUK should succeed. The fact is that the collateral proceedings are an attack on the proper process of these courts. The collateral proceedings have been furthered by an entity, through Mr Gayle-Childs, who is barred from bringing such proceedings and the process has been vitiated thoroughly by deception and fraud on, not least, the State of Libya by procuring various consent orders when Libya never even knew of them.

[33]Accordingly, for those reasons, I also dismiss, as totally without merit, the application for permission to appeal. That concludes my ruling on the application itself. There may be consequential matters or matters that I have omitted, in which case I am sure Mr Smouha will make good those submissions.

LATER

[34]I have before me a question of costs which is supported by a summary assessment statement of costs in the usual form. There can be no dispute that costs should follow the event. The applicant has been entirely successful. Equally, and for reasons which appear from the ruling that I have just made, it is clear that those costs should be made on the indemnity basis. I do not need to expand upon that. It is obvious from my ruling why I say that. Quite clearly, the application had to be brought and it has been brought in most unusual and remarkable circumstances.

[35]The real question is one of quantum. The grand total of costs that are sought is £324,522.49. That is, on any view, a significant amount of money. It does seem to me, however, not just because of the indemnity costs order that I have made, but because of the amount of work that needed to go into this application, that the costs should be ordered in that amount. I say this from direct experience of receiving the original application by Capitana Seas on the papers late last year, where what was sought was a stay of the order of HHJ Parfitt. I refused the stay on the ground that it was effectively meaningless and, in effect, setting aside the order of HHJ Parfitt to strike out the proceedings, and so for that reason I declined the application for a stay.

[36]It was clear even then on the very limited papers that I had seen that there was something rather strange about the proceedings. I could not understand the role of the State of Libya, and it was even a mystery as to how GDUK fitted into the process. That became clear when I received the very comprehensive evidence of Ms Parkes on behalf of GDUK and the extremely helpful and detailed submissions of counsel on behalf of GDUK.

[37]It is obvious that an awful lot of work has gone into matters, and it is equally obvious that this work was necessary to enable this matter to be disposed of within half a day, rather than a protracted explanation of a history going back to at least 2012. So, for those reasons, I am not going to make any deduction to the schedule, and I am going to order costs on the indemnity basis in that amount. ______________