A law firm's report to the court about an alleged breach of a judgment embargo by its client should not be admissible in subsequent contempt proceedings, two senior judges in the High Court heard today.
Lord Justice Warby and Mr Justice Nicklin were presiding over allegations of contempt against computer scientist Dr Craig Wright (pictured below) in a defamation case against a blogger who contested Wright's claim to be the inventor of the bitcoin digital currency.
Wright was successful in the action, but was awarded only £1 in damages by Mr Justice Chamberlain because of what the judge described as Wright’s 'deliberately false' evidence about the harm caused. In a subsequent ruling, the judge also suggested that the embargo on the judgment may have been breached, referring to a report by Wright's solicitors, specialist London firm Ontier, in response to allegations about social media posts by Wright.
At today's hearing, counsel for Wright argued that Ontier had acted without instructions from Wright when it submitted the report to the court and that its contents breached privilege. The court heard Ontier's solicitors considered that, as officers of the court, they had obligations to report on allegations of breach of embargo independently of their duties to their client. Ontier has come off the record in the matter.
For Wright, Tim Grey of 23ES argued that the court had 'received the documents in one capacity and is now using them in another capacity'. He challenged the fairness of 'quasi inquisitorial' proceedings in which only one side was represented, suggesting that the matter should be referred to 'an independent investigator of some description, probably the attorney general'.
On the admissibility issue, Nicklin, who presided over an earlier hearing in January this year, said: 'This was a report sent to the court. That's why I have the greatest problem with any privilege pertaining to that document.'
'It was disclosed by Ontier to the court in its capacity as a tribunal, not as prosecutor,' Grey responded.
'I struggle to see that once you have voluntarily supplied information to the court you can control what happens to it thereafter,' Nicklin said.
Grey submitted that, as the Ontier report forms the only evidence in the case presented by the 'notional prosecution', its inadmissibility would leave no case to answer.
Warby said he expected to deliver an extempore judgment tomorrow morning.
Tim Grey and Greg Callus, instructed by Janes Solicitors, appeared for Dr Craig Wright.
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