Dr Morteza Rajabieslami v Sam Tariverdi & Ors

MR JUSTICE BRIGHT:

1. On 8 th May 2024 I gave judgment in this matter, following a trial that had taken place on 23 rd and 24 th April 2024. The proceedings related to the vessel named ‘Ariana’. The claim was brought by the claimant, Dr Rajabieslami, on the basis that the defendant, Mr Tariverdi, as well was two companies owned or controlled by him, acted in breach of trust by selling the vessel to another party, and Dr Rajabieslami sought damages for the value of the vessel as well as other remedies on the basis of that breach of trust.

2. Among the issues that I had to decide in the course of the trial were important factual questions to be determined on the evidence, of which two are especially relevant to the matters with which this present judgment is concerned. The first was what happened at meetings in Athens on 18 th April 2019 and on 3 rd July 2019, and in particular which, out of various relevant business documents that were executed at either of those two meetings (specifically, a declaration of trust and an amendment document) were genuine, valid documents.

3. The second important factual question that is relevant to today’s hearing, and which I had to determine at the earlier trial, concerned the authenticity of a series of documents purportedly related to transactions in relation to a number of valuable Persian carpets. They were referred to in my judgment as “the Rug Transaction Documents”. The Rug Transactions themselves were said to have taken place between April 2016 and May 2019, for a total value of just under $10 million. Mr Tariverdi said in his defence for the original proceedings that, by those transactions, he had sold the Persian carpets to Dr Rajabieslami for a total sum of just under $10 million, and that the transfer of the vessel, ‘Ariana’, was carried out in order to settle that debt. I therefore had to decide whether the Rug Transaction Documents were genuine documents or not.

4. In the course of deciding those two important factual issues, as well as various other issues in the case, I had, of course, to make comments about the witnesses whose evidence I heard. About Dr Rajabieslami, I said that I found his evidence generally unreliable. I gave explanations for that and commented that I thought that much of what he said did not stand up to scrutiny. I therefore said that I could only rely on his evidence to the extent that it was supported by credible contemporaneous documentation. I said similar things about Ms Sanchouli, who was a witness who supported Dr Rajabieslami’s case, and is someone with whom he was and is closely associated. I made no findings in my judgment about Mr Tariverdi because he did not give evidence as a witness because he had been debarred from defending the claim.

5. Despite my concerns about Dr Rajabieslami and Ms Sanchouli as witnesses, I found in favour of Dr Rajabieslami on the main factual issues that I have just identified, as well as on various other points, factual and legal. In relation to the Rug Transactions, and the Rug Transaction Documents associated with them, I came to the conclusion that those documents were forgeries. I also concluded that the underlying Rug Transactions, which were said to be evidenced by those documents, had not existed. This is important because the Rug Transaction Documents were proffered by and relied upon by Mr Tariverdi. I also found in favour of Dr Rajabieslami in relation to the documentary issues that I identified earlier.

6. The overall result at the trial was that I found in Dr Rajabieslami’s favour and awarded a total of $12,279,568.15, as well as interest and costs. Mr Tariverdi sought to appeal but was refused permission by the Court of Appeal. Mr Tariverdi also sought additional time to pay, and was granted some additional time to pay, but has not in fact paid anything in respect of the judgment.

7. It is said on Dr Rajabieslami’s behalf that, since the conclusion of the trial, and since my judgment, it has become apparent not only that Mr Tariverdi deliberately and knowingly relied on fabricated evidence, but also that he disposed of assets in breach of the worldwide freezing order. I do not know, at any rate to the standard to which this will have to be looked at later (subject to the findings that I am about to make), whether that is correct. I make no findings on this, and nothing I say later in this judgment should be understood as a conclusion by me either that Mr Tariverdi acted dishonestly in relation to the evidence that he relied on at trial, or that he has breached the worldwide freezing order. However, it is relevant to some of the matters that I have to decide that credible allegations to this effect have been made by and on behalf of Dr Rajabieslami, with the support of material evidence.

8. Against this background, and having in mind the allegations that I have just summarised, Dr Rajabieslami then commenced contempt of court proceedings, by which he seeks to have Mr Tariverdi committed to prison for contempt of court. The contempt of court allegation was issued on 9 th July 2025 following an ex-parte application to Picken J for service by alternative means, which that judge granted on the previous day, 8 th July 2025. The documents for the application to Picken J were prepared on 4 th July 2025. Mr Justice Picken granted the order for alternative service in terms that permitted service by way of an email address that had been, and continues to be, frequently used by Mr Tariverdi.

9. In the evidence that was prepared by Mr Tariverdi in various witness statements, and in his skeleton argument for this hearing, a number of points were made by him which were not pursued before me at the hearing. One particularly prominent point, which was not pursued, related to Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, to the effect that it was unfair that he had been debarred from defending the claim, and that it was unfair also that orders were obtained ex-parte . As regards this, there is nothing inconsistent with Article 6 in having rules that preclude a party from participating in court proceedings if that party has committed a serious breach of the rules of court that apply to such proceedings, and there is nothing inconsistent with Article 6 in ex-parte proceedings. Orders are only made ex-parte in limited circumstances, and any interested party can then apply to have them set aside.

10. Another point which was made in writing, but which then fell away, was that an attempt had been made to make personal service on Mr Tariverdi in London on 30 th July of this year but failed. This fell away in circumstances where Dr Rajabieslami has never asserted that Mr Tariverdi was effectively served by this method on 30 th July.

11. In fact, in his oral submissions Mr Tariverdi relied on four points only. The first related to findings that were said to have been made by a court expert appointed by the Iranian Court in proceedings in that country. This was characterised by Mr Tariverdi as a determination in Iran that money was owed to him by Dr Rajabieslami, and he described this as a material change of circumstances for the purposes of a number of the matters that I have to decide today.

12. However, on examination of the one relevant document that was shown to me in this regard, it is in fact an opinion to the court proffered by an expert – it seems, some sort of accounting expert, or similar – who has come to the conclusion, I think on various assumptions as to the authenticity of the documents that he has looked, that monies were owed by Desero (a company which is owned by Mr Tariverdi, as I understand it), to St James (another company owned by Mr Tariverdi and which he actively runs).

13. Furthermore, not only is there no finding that monies are owed by Dr Rajabieslami to Mr Tariverdi, but only between the two companies, but further this is not a judicial determination. It is an accounting exercise by an expert. It is apparent that the document was referred by the expert to the court in Iran, but it is not clear that the court in Iran has made any decision in relation to it.

14. The second matter particularly relied on by Mr Tariverdi was in relation to the service order made by Picken J, in respect of which he said there had been serious, indeed systematic, non-disclosure. The principal point made in this regard was that Mr Tariverdi attended a hearing in London on 1 st July 2025. Furthermore, he says that it must have been apparent to Dr Rajabieslami, and more particularly to his solicitors, Stephenson Harwood, that Mr Tariverdi would be present in person at the hearing. Therefore, he says, it would have been possible for him to be served with the contempt proceedings on that occasion. However, no attempt was made to serve him then. None of this, however, was disclosed to Picken J. I should explain that that hearing related to different proceedings, involving Mr Tariverdi and a lender in relation to property that he owns in London.

15. While it is right that Mr Tariverdi, as I understand it, attended those proceedings on that occasion, the burden of the case that was made to Picken J on the ex-parte application was, firstly, that service by email would certainly be effective because the email address that was suggested as a proper medium was one that Mr Tariverdi had been using throughout the proceedings and regularly monitored, and, secondly, that, by contrast, the claimant could not be sure where Mr Tariverdi would be at any particular time. The judge was told that Mr Tariverdi maintained a residence in London, and also a residence in Athens, that he travels regularly to other jurisdictions, and that he can be quite hard to locate. Therefore, it was said it was likely to be difficult to effect personal service on him, without knowledge in advance of his movements. The judge was not told, in other words, that Mr Tariverdi never comes to London, only that the claimant, Dr Rajabieslami, did not know when he was likely to come to London so as to be able to serve him. It is right, nevertheless, that the judge was not told about the recent hearing that had taken place a few days beforehand.

16. The third matter particularly relied on by Mr Tariverdi is he says there has been systematic criminal conduct on the part of Dr Rajabieslami in conjunction with others associated with him. Ultimately, however, what this in reality came down to were findings that were made by Cockerill J in separate litigation in which neither Dr Rajabieslami nor Mr Tariverdi were parties, but in which Dr Rajabieslami gave evidence, as did Ms Sanchouli. In her judgment in that case, Cockerill J made findings similar to those that I had made about the quality of the evidence given by Dr Rajabieslami and Ms Sanchouli. She, too, regarded them as unreliable witnesses, whose evidence could not be relied on in the absence of contemporaneous supporting documents. That judgment, therefore, seems to me to take matters no further than my own judgment already had.

17. The fourth point made by Mr Tariverdi was that, in relation to the worldwide freezing order, the application had been made with unclean hands, and there had been a change of circumstances. However, when Mr Tariverdi expanded on the submissions under this heading, he said that it was the Iranian Court determination, as he characterised it, that he was relying on as the material change of circumstances, and it was false and fabricated evidence and similar misconduct that he relied on in relation to unclean hands, in other words, assertions of the same ilk as those that I have already discussed in relation to the findings of Cockerill J in her judgment in the unrelated litigation. In other words, the fourth point really adds very little to the first point and to the third.

18. I turn now to the applications that I have to consider, bearing in mind those four points particularly advanced by Mr Tariverdi.

19. The first is his application now to discharge the worldwide freezing order, which I find it convenient to deal with first, for reasons that I will explain.

20. It is particularly difficult for Mr Tariverdi to succeed in this application given that Dr Rajabieslami succeeded in the claim in the proceedings in which the worldwide freezing order was issued. It follows that Mr Tariverdi cannot now say that the claim against him lacked, or lacks, merit. He would, in principle, be able to seek to have the worldwide freezing order set aside by challenging the case that was advanced to the judge who granted it in relation to risk of dissipation. However, any argument that there is no risk of dissipation is untenable in circumstances where Mr Tariverdi has been found to the civil standard to have forged material evidence, and also where Dr Rajabieslami says that Mr Tariverdi has in fact disposed of assets in breach of the worldwide freezing order. Indeed, before me he accepted that he had disposed of certain assets, notwithstanding the worldwide freezing order, in the course of his oral submissions.

21. Mr Tariverdi’s only real point in relation to the worldwide freezing order was change of circumstances, which he said arose from the proceedings in Iran. However, the written opinion of the court-appointed expert, which appears to relate to the accounting position between two companies rather than the position between Dr Rajabieslami and Mr Tariverdi personally, and which the court in Iran has not accepted, at least at today’s date, is of no relevance.

22. In his earlier written submissions Mr Tariverdi had made the suggestion of a failure to make disclosure to Jacobs J, who granted the worldwide freezing order, that there had been a co-ordinated scheme to discredit Mr Tariverdi. However, the evidence relied on made no sense, and this point was not pursued by Mr Tariverdi in oral submissions. The application to discharge the worldwide freezing order therefore fails.

23. I dealt with that application first because it is relevant to the others, specifically to the application in relation to the service of the contempt of court application, that is the application made to Picken J ex-parte . This is because the existence of the worldwide freezing order was one of the matters relied on by Dr Rajabieslami when the application was made ex-parte to Picken J. I therefore now turn to Mr Tariverdi’s application to set aside the order of Picken J permitting service of the contempt of court application by email, but I do so bearing in mind the decision that I have just made that the worldwide freezing order will not be discharged but will continue.

24. Mr Tariverdi does not dispute that the contempt of court application in fact came to his attention when served by email, nor does he dispute that the relevant documents were well received by him, notwithstanding that, for one document, it was necessary for there to be two efforts. His only point is that CPR 81 requires personal service. Whilst that is true, CPR 6.16 and 6.28 mean that the court can dispense with personal service where it is just to do so, or indeed the court can order alternative service.

25. What was said to Picken J, in essence, was that Mr Tariverdi had lost the trial conducted before me and that he had been the subject of adverse findings that reflected badly as to his honesty and reliability. It was also said that he had a residence in London but also resided in Athens and spent much of his time travelling so personal service would be difficult. Nothing said by Mr Tariverdi in his submissions to me today contradicted this. On the contrary, he clarified that he does not have any residence in the UK, which, if anything, implies that he is likely to spend less time in the UK even than was in fact indicated to Picken J.

26. Mr Tariverdi’s main point was that Picken J should have been told that he, Mr Tariverdi, had been present in London on 1 st July 2025 for the hearing in the other proceedings. He suggested that Picken J should have been told that it therefore would have been possible to serve him then. Mr Tariverdi further suggested that the failure to make this point to Picken J was a failure to make full and frank disclosure. I do not see how this could have affected Picken J’s view materially. Mr Justice Picken was not told that Mr Tariverdi never comes to the UK, on the contrary, he was told that he lived here, at least part time, which was an overstatement in Mr Tariverdi’s favour. If he had been told both, one, that Mr Tariverdi does not reside in London at all andt, two, there had been one recent occasion that could be identified when he had made a brief trip to the UK, this would not have affected matters.

27. In the course of the hearing before me, Mr Tariverdi helpfully gave his address in Athens and confirmed that he would not object to receiving personal service at that address. Mr Lakin, representing Dr Rajabieslami, indicated that he could give an undertaking on behalf of his client to use best endeavours to serve Mr Tariverdi at that address. It would seem sensible for Stephenson Harwood to liaise with Mr Tariverdi to confirm a convenient date and time when this can happen given Mr Tariverdi’s assurance that he is content to receive personal service in Athens.

28. On the basis of such an undertaking, I will not discharge the order made by Picken J, and I will refuse the application to do so. I reach this decision, as I say, on the basis of such an undertaking, and in the hope and expectation that arrangements will shortly be made that will enable personal service to take place that will put this question to bed finally. I emphasise, however, that if for some disappointing but unexpected reason it proves impossible for Dr Rajabieslami and his solicitors to effect personal service at the address given in Athens, because the necessary arrangements cannot be made, that will not affect the decision that I have just made; as long as Stephenson Harwood can show that best endeavours were made.

29. I then turn to the application to set aside the contempt of court application itself. The grounds relied on for this third application were as follows.

30. First, it was said that there has been invalid service of the contempt of court application because there was no valid personal service. This ground cannot work in circumstances where there was an effective order made for service by email and that order has not been discharged. The next ground of the application was that the order made by Picken J was said to have been obtained through material non-disclosure, but that is a ground that I have just rejected. The third ground of this application was that there had been systematic abuse of process, but this ground as well I have rejected. The fourth ground was fundamental breach of natural justice. This related to the Article 6 point that I have already noted was not pursued orally and for which there was no justification. The final ground was the suggestion that there had been misconduct by the process server engaged by Dr Rajabieslami on 30 th July. There was no such misconduct, as far as I can see, and this too was not pursued.

31. In other words, the findings that I have already made are contrary to all of the grounds set out in relation to that application, which therefore must fail.

32. There were two additional applications, but these both fall away in the light of the failure of the three main applications, and it follows that all of the applications, ultimately, are rejected. - - - - - - - - - - (This Judgment has been approved by Mr Justice Bright) Digital Transcription by Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd 2 nd Floor, Quality House, 6-9 Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1HP Tel No: 020 7067 2900. DX: 410 LDE Email: [email protected] Web: www.martenwalshcherer.com