Peters & Peters obtains search and inspection orders to enforce obligations in freezing order
Thursday 31 March, 2022
The High Court has granted search and inspection orders to Peters & Peters’ client Mrs Nebahat İşbilen against the Defendant to a circ. £40m fraud claim, Mr Selman Turk her one-time personal financier and trusted adviser. The relief, as noted by the Judge, is of “major, if not critical, importance in…finding out what has become of her money and assets”.
In March 2021 Mrs İşbilen obtained a freezing and disclosure order against the Defendant. However, in default of the order he repeatedly failed to explain what he had done with Mrs İşbilen’s money. Peters & Peters pursued the application for the search order, over a year since the issue of the proceedings, to make that freezing order effective. The Judge accepted that Mrs İşbilen had exhausted all less intrusive options in her “quest for disclosure” and allowed the application notwithstanding the passage of time. Additionally, in the light of the findings of serious breaches of disclosure obligations, the Judge acceded to permitting immediate inspection at the return date hearing.
The essence of the case was distilled by the Judge in his summing up, stating “I am satisfied that there is a strong prima facie case that a major fraud has been committed by Mr Turk on Mrs İşbilen, that she has exhausted all less intrusive routes to obtain disclosure, and that the proposed order is the least intrusive order which is likely to provide her with the evidence which it appears that Mr Turk has so far wrongfully withheld from her”.
Jonathan Tickner, Vlad Meerovich and George Pizzey acted for the Claimant
Case references [2022] EWHC 572 (Ch) and [2022] EWHC 697 (Ch)