A couple at the centre of a landmark libel case will have to sell their home to pay a £285,000 debt to their former solicitors, London media specialist Carter-Ruck, after the High Court granted the firm an order for the sale of the property.
Grzegorz Malkiewicz, 66, and Teresa Bazarnik-Malkiewicz, 64, were sued for libel in 2016 by Polish businessman Jan Serafin over an article in their Polish-language monthly Nowy Czas (New Time).
The pair – who were represented by Carter-Ruck prior to the High Court trial in 2017 – successfully defended the claim, with Mr Justice Jay ruling that their public interest defence was made out in relation to all the allegations made against Serafin.
But that finding was overturned by the Court of Appeal due to Jay’s ‘manifestly unfair and hostile’ behaviour towards litigant-in-person Serafin, who was found to have been denied a fair trial – a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2020 before Serafin later discontinued the claim.
Carter-Ruck today applied for an order for the sale of Malkiewicz and Bazarnik-Malkiewicz’s house in south east London in order to recoup just over £285,000 in unpaid legal fees plus interest.
The court heard that the property, which has been valued at around £950,000, is also subject to a prior charge held by the Bank of Scotland in the sum of nearly £295,000 and another charge held by David Price QC, who represented the couple at the Supreme Court, in the sum of around £144,000.
James Newman, for Carter-Ruck, said Malkiewicz and Bazarnik-Malkiewicz had previously sought to challenge the firm’s fees but failed to pay £100,000 as ordered to pursue their claim for a detailed assessment.
‘This is not a case where the claimant has acted in an oppressive manner,’ he told the court. ‘They have been proportionate and reasonable in trying to engage with the defendants in order to recover what is now … an ever-increasing substantial debt.’ He added that there was ‘sufficient equity’ in the property in order to meet the couple’s debt to Carter-Ruck as well as the two other charges on the property.
Deputy Master Joanna Lampert granted an order for sale, but said she was ‘not convinced’ that the current assessment of the property’s worth – which she described as a ‘drive-by valuation’ – was sufficient. She ordered Carter-Ruck to obtain a ‘proper valuation’ of the property by the end of June ‘in order to set a minimum price at which it can be sold’.
Malkiewicz and Bazarnik-Malkiewicz were also ordered to pay Carter-Ruck’s costs in the sum of £25,000.
