Couper v Port of London Authority [2017] EWHC 22 (Ch)
Joseph Ollech appeared in the High Court on behalf of the successful Port of London Authority and a High Court Enforcement Officer in obtaining orders for enforcement by way of sale and disposal of a large collection of boats on the River Thames under Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, and also for related directions imposing two extended civil restraining orders against the Claimant (Mr Couper) and his wife.
The enforcement process arose following litigation between the parties which ended in 2013 with all Mr Couper’s many claims being dismissed and the Port of London Authority (and its co-defendants) succeeding on all their counterclaims for trespass and possession of the riverbed. Since then, and apart from a period of without prejudice negotiations for the disposal of the vessels, the enforcement process was complicated by Mr Couper - and on several occasions, his wife, even though she was not a party to the proceedings – making a plethora of applications to the court, often without notice, and often at the very last minute before other matters were due to happen or orders enacted. This had the effect of prolonging and complicating a process that should have taken only a matter of months. Part of this flowed from the practical difficulty that arises for the court when an applicant seeks to take advantage of the interim motions court to raise complex matters at short notice, and adducing incomplete and misleading information.
Joseph advised upon the preparation and presentation of an extensive application to the court, whereupon the matter was brought back before Mr Justice Arnold, the original trial judge. Unsurprisingly, numerous further cross applications were issued by the First Claimant in advance of that hearing, so that by the time in total the court had to consider both the PLA’s application and five cross applications. The PLA’s application was granted, and all of Mr Couper’s were dismissed.
Obtaining civil restraining orders in any particular case is necessarily fact sensitive but of interest in this matter is the fact that (a) the court exercised its power to make an extended civil restraining order against a non-party, and (b) the court was prepared to treat the First Claimant and his wife to have been, in effect, acting together in considering the number of totally without merit applications that they had made both separately and together.
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