A judge has urged a former law firm owner to stop ignoring the claim being made against her, or she could face committal proceedings.
The High Court heard that Dorota Newman had not responded in any meaningful way to lawyers representing Jay Sahota since a freezing order was made on her assets last month.
Sahota sold Kent firm Jarmans Solicitors to Newman in 2013 but claims alongside his wife Joti for £913,000 in unpaid sums.
The freezing order for assets valued up to £346,000 was accompanied by an order to disclose details about her assets. The court heard that Sahota even contacted Newman through WhatsApp to ask her to engage, but her only response was to leave a group they were both members of.
Asked to renew the freezing order, Mr Justice Marcus Smith said Newman had breached the court order and that it now appeared to be open to the claimants to make a committal application.
‘It is somewhat frustrating to deal with a defendant who is simply not engaging with the court,’ he said. ‘At the moment she is clearly taking an ostrich-like posture with an attempt to pretend these proceedings are not happening and they will all go away. I suspect that the moment you start to try to enforce, the situation will flip and we will start to have engagement.’
The judge rejected the claimants’ invitation to make an unless order and said they would be better off winning their case based on merit rather than as a default judgment, which may lead to further applications for relief from sanctions.
Dealing with costs, the judge said it was clear that the claimants should be awarded their costs, but he questioned whether the £54,000 bill was proportionate or reasonable for what he described as a ‘beautifully prepared application but a fairly vanilla’ one.
Pepin Aslett, representing Sahota, said the costs were fair considering the lack of response from Newman and the requirement for three hearings in the case already.
The judge said the ‘going rate’ for a freezing order application was nearer £20,000 but he allowed costs of £38,000 without the need for a detailed assessment. This was added to the value of the freezing order.
Jarmans was shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority last year on the basis of suspected dishonesty by Newman, who lists her occupation on Companies House as a fashion designer. She was made subject to an order earlier this year barring her from being involved in the legal profession, following an SRA finding that she authorised 18 improper transfers from the client to office account, and caused a shortage of around £3,700.
