On 25 October 2024, Mrs Justice Hill handed down judgment in Titan Wealth Holdings Ltd v Okunola [2024] EWHC 2718 (KB).  The successful Claimants, two Titan Wealth Group entities and two of their senior executives, were represented by Robin Lööf and Marcus Field, instructed by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan UK LLP.

The Claimants had advanced claims against a former employee (Ms Okunola) in breach of contract, breach of confidence and harassment, all of which succeeded in full.  Mrs Justice Hill found that, after several claims brought by Ms Okunola against the Claimants in the Employment Tribunal had been dismissed, Ms Okunola had embarked upon an ”extraordinary” campaign of vengeance with the intention of causing the Claimants significant suffering and financial loss.  The campaign took the form of (1) sharing confidential documents taken from the Titan Wealth Group with numerous other persons and (2) targeting the individual Claimants with a barrage of grossly offensive messages, many of which were also sent to colleagues, clients and others working in the wealth management industry.

In light of the success of the claims, Mrs Justice Hill has awarded the Claimants damages and imposed final injunctions to prevent any recurrence of Ms Okunola’s conduct.  Ms Okunola has also been ordered to pay the Claimants’ costs of the proceedings on the indemnity basis and been made subject to an extended civil restraint order, restricting her ability to commence further litigation.

Interim applications in the proceedings raised several interesting points of law, including:

  • whether the High Court has jurisdiction to restrain a party from abusing the lawyers representing her opponents; and
  • the circumstances in which witness statements of absent witnesses can be admitted without a hearsay notice.

The latter point is addressed in the trial judgment (available here) at [55]-[59].  The former was the subject of an earlier judgment ([2024] EWHC 2641 (KB)).  The Claimants’ successful contempt application against Ms Okunola is the subject of yet further judgments dated 20 and 21 June 2024 ([2024] EWHC 1646 (KB) and [2024] EWHC 1799 (KB)).