Mark Wassouf succeeds in summary judgment application over complex defence and counterclaim
In an important case for lenders facing borrowers that seek to delay or avoid their repayment obligations, on 2 December 2024 the High Court handed down judgment in Yamada Limited v Setara Holdings and ors [2024] EWHC 3095.
The case concerned a loan agreement by which the claimant agreed to extend a short-term bridging loan to the first defendant. The second to eighth defendants guaranteed that loan.
The borrower failed to repay the loan and the second to eighth defendants failed to honour their guarantees.
After the lender commenced legal proceedings, the defendants asserted that in fact the loan agreement was bound up with a broader web of investments, only upon the commercial success of which would the loan become repayable and the guarantees enforceable.
On that basis, the defendants pleaded that they were not required to meet their payment obligations and that they were entitled to damages from the claimant for failure of the other investments with which they considered the loan agreement to be connected.
They ran complex defences and counterclaims based on, among other things, alleged misrepresentation, implied terms, set-off and the application of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 to provisions of the loan agreement.
Following a hearing of the summary judgment application on 23 and 24 October 2024, Stephen Hofmeyr KC (sitting as Deputy High Court Judge) granted summary judgment to the claimant over the entirety of the defendants’ defences and counterclaims.
The judgment is available here.
Mark Wassouf represented the claimant as sole counsel, instructed by Charles Allin and Serena Cooke of DLA Piper UK LLP.
This decision is similar to the one in EBRD v Teodori 2003 [2023] 2 WLUK 673, in which Mark (also acting as sole counsel) successfully obtained summary judgment last year for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development over complex defences run by the borrower and its guarantors. That judgment is available here.
