Success for Faisal Osman in High Court Summary Judgment Application

Faisal Osman, instructed by Robert Lawrie of BCL Solicitors LLP, has successfully obtained summary judgment, defeating a claim against their client, a respected solicitor. Although the court dismissed the claim in its entirety, 33CL will not be releasing their client’s name, given the sensitive nature of the case.

Our client had been employed by a firm that, following an intervention by the SRA, turned out to have been run by a dishonest solicitor currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for fraud.

Former clients of the firm pursued a claim against our client, alleging that she had been complicit in her employer’s fraud, alleging breach of contract and negligence, and sought to amend their claim to add allegations of dishonesty and conspiracy. In addition to the potentially career-ending nature of those allegations, the claimants sought damages of over £3m.

Deputy Master Hansen gave judgment on 7 March 2024, dismissing the claims in their entirety. The Master found that it would be entirely wrong to find our client guilty by association with her former employer, that she had not breached any duty of care to the claimants, that she had no involvement in any fraud committed by her former employer and that any allegations against our client of dishonesty and conspiracy to injure were untenable. The Master concluded that there was no real prospect of the claimants succeeding at trial and granted summary judgment, ordering the claimants to pay costs.

The Judge adopted Faisal’s submission: “The Court will expect career-threatening allegations of dishonesty against a practising solicitor to be made with extreme care and never without a cogent and well-founded evidentiary basis.”

The case is a reminder of the need for any claimant alleging fraud to ensure that it identifies the correct defendants, makes the correct claims against them, and has a legal team that can set out the claims accurately and coherently. 

The case also reinforces the need to identify the inherent risks in any application for summary judgment and to implement a case-specific strategy to address and minimise them.

To find out more, or instruct Faisal, please contact the Practice Directors.