
Significant Legal Win for “David” Canadian Corp in London Court
Global Energy Horizons Corp (GEHC) an alternative energy corporation headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada has won a significant Judgment against The Winros Partnership (formerly Rosenblatt Solicitors) a City of London based law firm. GEHC’s claims are related to the legality and enforceability of three Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs) alongside several misconduct allegations against Rosenblatt. A CFA is a contingency agreement between a law firm and its client whereby the law firm assumes the costs of pursuing a litigation for a reward that could amount to 100% of its customary fee. The case considered GEHC’s claim that all three CFAs entered into with Rosenblatt were unenforceable, and in any event wrongly terminated, and as such Rosenblatt wrongly claimed costs, despite the existence of an unenforceable ‘no-win, no-fee’ CFA. The case also considered numerous allegations of impropriety, including Rosenblatt misrepresenting to its client that monies were owed. The Judgment, handed down on Thursday August 20, 2020, found for GEHC in all its claims. Master James, the presiding justice, noted that Rosenblatt “left GEHC’s best interests in their rear-view mirror” and “favoured its own interests over its client’s.” The Judgment found that Rosenblatt had misrepresented the following to GEHC and/or the court:
- that one of the CFAs had come to an end, before wrongly and unclearly invoicing the claimant for monies allegedly owed
- a win had been achieved under a later CFA resulting in additional fee requirements of £7 million
- GEHC had agreed to gift Rosenblatt in excess of £2 million, including £460,000 in irrecoverable success fees which Rosenblatt maintained they had explained to GEHC that there was no contractual entitlement
- further, Rosenblatt failed to keep records of the alleged advice or the alleged agreement