CANDEY succeed in obtaining a rare conditional order on summary judgment application

On 6 March 2026, Rosalind Phelps KC (sitting as a Judge of the High Court) handed down a ruling in an application brought by CANDEY’s client against the Chairman of RiverRock European Capital Partners and CEO of RiverBank Luxembourg, Michel Péretié. The order requires Mr Péretié to pay £250,000 into court (or provide adequate alternate security) as a condition for being able to defend the claim against him.

The claim against Mr Péretié is for payment of more than £1 million under a personal guarantee bearing his name and signature. Mr Péretié denies the claim and says that his signature was applied without his authority. CANDEY applied for summary judgment against Mr Péretié. In considering the application the Judge said in her judgment:

“I have considerable sympathy with the claimant’s submissions that, based on the selection of documents I was shown, the defendant’s account is difficult to believe. Particularly striking is the fact that, to put it neutrally, the wording for the guarantee came from the defendant’s email address and clearly referred in the subject matter to a guarantee. It was also striking that after the maturity date the defendant was clearly acknowledging his own personal liability and made what appeared to be concrete offers to raise the money, including by liquidating his car collection. It is indeed hard to understand why that offer would ever have been made unless the defendant believed that he had some sort of personal liability...

However, that is the not the same as saying that this case has no real prospect of success at trial following disclosure and the further steps that would be taken before a full trial on the merits…

It follows that while the claimant has made a powerful case on the merits at this stage, given the nature of the dispute between the parties, the fact that the central issue in the case is the subject of a direct factual conflict between the two parties, and the fact that the court does not have a complete factual or documentary picture, I cannot say that there is no real prospect of success in relation to the central point raised by the defence…”

In making the conditional order, the Judge said in her ruling:

“In my view this is a clear example of the category of case identified by Males LJ in Gama Aviation [Gama Aviation (UK) v Taverelas Petroleum Trading DMCC [2019] EWCA Civ 119], where the Defendant’s prospects of success are real but nevertheless improbable… Having considered the Defendant’s evidence and heard submissions made on his behalf I have formed the view that on the central issue of the signature of the guarantee the Defendant’s account is difficult to believe, and other aspects of the defence are weak… Particularly striking was the fact that the Defendant’s evidence exhibited no contemporaneous documents to support his account and it was not clear whether such documents had been searched and considered, as might reasonably have been expected if the Defendant’s account, and his belief that he did not sign any guarantee, were genuinely held. A payment into court in order to demonstrate that the Defendant’s undocumented account provided in his summary judgment response was not simply ‘playing for time’ is an appropriate way to proceed against this background.”

The team include Andrew Dunn (Partner) and Emily Higgins (Senior Solicitor) with Stephen Hackett (Counsel) of 3 Hare Court.