Two Omani nationals who brought a ‘hopeless’ appeal against findings of contempt over more than £3m in unpaid debts to their former English solicitors have been ordered to pay indemnity costs due to their ‘reprehensible conduct’.

Hassan Khan & Co and The Khan Partnership, two linked firms of solicitors based in London, have been pursuing Iman Said Al-Rawas and her husband Thamer Al-Shanfari since August 2013, having represented them in High Court litigation between 2006 and 2009.

Al-Rawas and Al-Shanfari were ordered to pay the two firms over £1m in March 2018, but have failed to pay a penny and were found guilty of contempt of court on 14 charges by Mr Justice Morris last September.

The judge jailed Al-Rawas and Al-Shanfari in their absence for 24 months and 15 months respectively in November, finding they had committed ‘serious, persistent and deliberate breaches of court orders’ and tried to ‘disrupt, frustrate and protract’ the proceedings against them.

The couple, who are resident in Oman, appealed in December but dropped the case after the firms sought an order that they must pay the total outstanding sum of £3.76m into court plus security for costs of £225,000 as a condition of continuing with their appeal.

At the Court of Appeal last month, Hassan Khan & Co and The Khan Partnership applied for indemnity costs to reflect the fact Al-Rawas and Al-Shanfari sought to ‘avail themselves of the procedures of the Court of Appeal whilst fugitives from justice’.

Lord Justice Coulson today ruled that the firms were entitled to their costs of the appeal on the indemnity basis, saying the couple exercised their automatic right of appeal in ‘a further attempt to disrupt, frustrate and protract proceedings and to avoid compliance with court orders’.

The judge said Al-Rawas and Al-Shanfari ‘never had any genuine intent to advance this appeal in a legitimate fashion’, adding: ‘It was a sham from start to finish. Such conduct is a long way outside the norm and it justifies an order for indemnity costs.’

He ordered the couple to pay the firms’ costs of the appeal in the sum of £217,482.53 with a payment on account of £152,237.77.

Coulson also suggested that permission to appeal in contempt cases should be required where an appellant has refused to submit to the court’s jurisdiction, saying: ‘There can be no justification in requiring all criminals and civil litigants to seek permission to appeal, yet allowing contemnors the right to circumvent such a filter.’