Dear Supporters
Many thanks again and today I will tell you an amazing story about how the British law firm CANDEY, bribed by Putin's oligarchs, recently tried to remove this petition, which has tens of thousands of your signatures.
To begin with, I will remind you how CANDEY appeared in the history of my already extreme relations with Putin's oligarchs (this story is described in the main text of the petition and one of my demands to the authorities is to bring CANDEY and the oligarchs to criminal responsibility for a corruption crime). In 2021, I signed a contract with CANDEY to represent my interests in the lawsuit against the oligarchs, but our relationship lasted only 1 month, as I soon became convinced that the oligarchs bribed my lawyers (they explicitly warned me about this in advance), and therefore I terminated the contract.
The following happened. On the eve of the deadline for our response to the oligarchs' pleadings of more than 2600 pages, CANDEY began to aggressively and persistently demand that our response to these 2600 pages be formulated only on 3-5 pages consisting exclusively of headlines and hints, and without confirming evidence. To my repeated questions about the reasons for such absurd and anecdotal "tactics", CANDEY'S lawyers either did not answer at all or answered with the words that "we know better" (expressed in an aggressively rude form). Such an extremely "convincing" argument was made, in particular, by a partner of the firm YURI BOTIUK during our conversation on 27 August. Since this "argument" did not convince me, Mr Botiuk brought a new one, in the form of blackmail – that if I resist this, CANDEY will terminate the contract with me.
Let me remind you that in connection with this story, in January of this year, an investigation was finally initiated against CANDEY by the Legal Ombudsman on my application filed back in 2021.
So, on the night of Friday to Saturday, 17 February, I received an email from CANDEY, which was addressed not only to me, but also to Change.org. The letter stated that if Change.org does not immediately delete my petition, then a libel suit will be filed against them and me. What prompted CANDEY on Friday night to urgently demand the removal of the petition, which was created 3 months ago and received about 50,000 signatures, remains a mystery. Perhaps this is due to the extra mugs of beer drunk by leaders of Candey along with the oligarchs who bribed them on Friday evening in some London pub.
But it wasn't the strange timing of the attack on my petition that surprised me the most, but the quantity and “quality” of the lies contained in the removal request. I was shocked to the core by the impudence of the lie, and the very next day I filed a complaint with the Solicitor Regulation Authority demanding that CANDEY be immediately closed for gross violations of the rules of conduct for law firms. It got to the point that contrary to objective reality, confirmed by my letter of 31 August 2021 about the termination of the contract, CANDEY stated that it was not me, but they who terminated our agreement.
Below I publish the full text of my complaint (the original sent to the SRA is here). But before the announcement for tomorrow - I will describe the amazing development of events with the Latvian criminal case about death threats made by the oligarchs against me and even my children (the oligarchs demanded under these threats that I drop the lawsuit).
TEXT OF COMPLAINT TO THE SRA AGAINST CANDEY LLP OF 18 FEBRUARY 2023
1. I am a claimant in case CL-2016-000831 pending in the High Court of Justice (KBD). In July 2021, an agreement was signed between me and law firm Candey to represent the interests of the plaintiffs in this case. However, after about a month, I have been forced to terminate the contract, because it became obvious that Candey colluded with my procedural opponents (Russian oligarchs) and began to act in their interests and clearly (in prima facie nature) contrary to the interests of its clients (plaintiffs).
2. Since the history of my relations with the defendants is full of monstrous things, such as, for example, numerous death threats against me and even against my children, which (threats) were accompanied by demands to drop the lawsuit, in order to ensure security, I initiated a petition, the main goal of which is to stop wild death threats and to bring Russian oligarchs to justice for these death threats and, consequently, extortion.
3. It is important to note that in Latvia, where I live under refugee status because of this conflict, a criminal case was recently opened on the facts of these death threats.
4. As for Candey, back in 2021, I filed a complaint against it with the Legal Ombudsman and in January 2023, that is, very recently, the Legal Ombudsman recognized that the information I provided is the basis for initiating an investigation. I enclose the last letter from the Legal Ombudsman.
5. Late in the evening (at 22:50) on Friday, 17 February 2023, I received by email a letter from Candey, the main recipient of which is the petition platform Change.org. Candey's letter is a request to delete my petition and is accompanied by threats of various legal consequences not only against me, but first of all against Change.org.
6. In this letter, Candey refers to another letter addressed only to Change.org and dated 31 January 2023, to which Change.org allegedly did not react. It is important in this context that this letter was not sent to me (the author of the petition, that is, according to the logic of Candey, the main distributor of “slander”) at all.
7. This letter has all the signs of an abusive approach to litigation against Public Participation (so-called SLAPPs).
FIVE DELIBERATELY FALSE STATEMENTS OF CANDEY
8. But before moving on to the issue of SLAPPs, I will focus on the whole set of KNOWNLY FALSE statements contained in Candey's letter. That is, not only the letter is clearly SLAPPs, it is also based on deliberately false information, which in itself is a flagrant violation of rule 1.4 of the Code of Conduct for Firms, which states: “You do not mislead or attempt to mislead your clients, the court or others, either by your own acts or omissions or allowing or being complicit in the acts or omissions of others” (underlined by me).
9. In this case Candey misleads Change.org – the world's most famous and authoritative American petition platform, with more than half a billion people participating.
10. The first OBVIOUSLY FALSE statement is formulated as follows: “We previously represented Mr Sychev in High Court proceedings (claim reference No. CL-2016-000831) until our firm decided to come off the record after being falsely accused by Mr Sychev of taking bribes from his opponents in the litigation”.
11. Obviously false (and radically distorting the reality) words are underlined by me - that allegedly Candey was the initiator of the termination of the relationship and ceasing to act.
12. This lie is, I would say, brazen and very primitive, as it is easily refuted by the irrefutable evidence available to Candey. It was I who initiated the termination of the contract, which is confirmed by my letter to Candey dated 31 August 2021, paragraphs 38-39 of which read as follows: “I have no other reasonable explanation for the above, except that you appear to have colluded with the defendants (bribed by them). This circumstance does not surprise me at all, given that (1) the defendants made direct threats and warnings to me that they might bribe my lawyers, and (2) the very likely fact that my former solicitors have been bribed as well (paragraphs 221, 245-259 of my WS sent to you on August 20). In such circumstances, I am forced to terminate the contract between us and reserve the right to take the necessary legal steps in connection with your actions, which, at a minimum, are incompatible with the ethical rules of solicitors” (underlined by me).
13. The next day, without waiting for a response from Candey, it was I who filed the Notice of change of legal representation (N434) with the court.
14. The second OBVIOUSLY FALSE statement is contained in the words: “We understand that Mr Sychev has attempted to advance such claims in court, but that his case was struck out as disclosing no real prospects of success”.
15. Candey cannot help but understand that if I were to file such a claim with the court, Candey itself would be the defendant. I did not initiate any lawsuits against Candey, even more such that were “struck out as disclosing no real prospect of success”.
16. Let me remind you – since this is extremely important in this context – that I filed a complaint with the Legal Ombudsman and he saw the “real prospect of success" (if to use Candey’s phraseology) and began an investigation.
17. The third OBVIOUSLY FALSE statement is contained in the following words: “Mr Sychev has reached a conclusion of utmost seriousness without adducing a shred of evidence in support of his defamatory statements” (underlined by me).
18. The text of the petition contains interactive links (i.e., links, by clicking on which you can immediately open the relevant document), at least to the following evidence:
(a) Transcripts of my last conversations with Candey (with links to supporting audio files), during which Candey's lawyers persistently and aggressively made absolutely comical demands to me that our response to the defendants' applications of more than 2600 pages should be formulated only on 3-5 pages, consisted exclusively of headlines and hints and did not contain confirming evidence. And Candey's lawyers simply did not answer my questions about the reasons for this anecdotal approach to litigation.
(b) Transcript (with audio file) of my conversation with a representative of the defendants, during which this representative stated that the defendants would bribe Candey.
(c) My correspondence with Candey, in which I demanded answers to a number of questions (including about the reasons for their anecdotal demand of 3-5 pages). Candey didn't respond to any of my letters.
19. The fourth OBVIOUSLY FALSE statement is contained in the words: “as a result of Mr Sychev’s repudiatory breach, our firm has expended many hours of legal services to Mr Sychev for which we have not been paid our fees”.
20. The reality, which is well known to Candey, is, first of all, that our agreement was on DBA terms, that is, it did not provide for payment until the case was won.
21. As for the payment in case of termination of the contract on my initiative, the terms of our agreement were formulated as follows: “You may terminate this agreement at any time but if you go on to recover or preserve any monies or derive any benefits from your Opponents you shall be liable to pay us, at our election, either (a) the Payment or (b) our hourly rate costs and expenses up to the date of termination. You undertake to ensure that any Proceeds shall be paid to any successor firm’s client account to be held subject to the terms of this agreement. If the agreement is terminated and we decide to be paid the Payment, you agree that you will answer any reasonable request for information we might raise about the progress of the case and the recovery or preservation of the Proceeds, and you will instruct your representatives to do the same. You also agree that you will instruct your representatives to receive any Proceeds and pay the Payment to us”.
22. Since I still have not received a benefit from my opponents, the question of paying for Candey services cannot arise in principle.
23. But that is not all. Candey sent me letters several times with a reference to the quoted contract term and reminded me that if I won, I must pay Candey 165 thousand pounds. Several times in my reply letters, I asked for an explanation of how this amount was calculated, but I did not get an answer to this elementary question.
24. The fifth OBVIOUSLY FALSE statement is contained in the words "Mr Sychev is domiciled in England" (in the context that the English court allegedly has jurisdiction to consider Candey's claim against Change.org).
25. At the same time, Candey knows perfectly well that I live in Latvia, and not in England. Candey had this information both before signing the contract and now, as my letters to Candey (which they ignore) indicate my Latvian address.
Insults directed at me
26. Separately, I would like to draw your attention to the obvious insults to me contained in the Candey’s letter. The double insult is contained in the sentence: “His campaign against our firm, which appears to be based on little more than paranoia, is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal process” (underlined by me).
27. As for the second underlined phrase (insults), it actually applies not only to me, but also to Mr Justice Jacobs, who at the hearing on 8 October 2021, was deciding on the volume of my response to the 2600-page applications of the defendants. Regarding Candey's anecdotal demand for 3-5 pages, Mr Justice Jacobs said: “I quite understand that three to five pages is too short. Could you produce a witness statement which was shorter, let's say 75 pages, and still cover the important points?”. As a result, Mr Justice Jacobs decided that the response should be 130 pages long, which is 26-44 times more than Candey's anecdotal 3-5 pages. Thus, if Candey believes that I fundamentally do not understand the legal process, then the very experienced Mr Justice Jacobs demonstrates the same fundamental misunderstanding of the legal process as well.
SLAPPs
28. The fact that Candey's letter of 17 February is clearly SLAPPs is confirmed by a whole set of facts.
29. In response to my letter dated 31 August 2021 about the termination of our agreement on my initiative, Candey wrote the following on 7 September (paragraph 11 of the letter): “At paragraph 38 you allege that our firm accepted bribes from the Defendants. This is categorically denied, deceitful and wholly incorrect. Any repetition of this is not only defamatory but a crime under English law, as it is a malicious falsehood”.
30. To begin with, I must pay attention to another obvious lie, which in this case is contained in the quoted phrase about criminal liability. There is no such criminal liability in England, as I pointed out in my reply letter. In this letter, I also asked Candey to answer the question of what law establishes criminal liability, which Candey intimidated me with. There is still no answer to this elementary question.
31. The SRA regards such threats as signs of SLAPPs. In particular, these threats fall under the following signs of SLAPPs according to the official position of the SRA[1]:
(a) “Claiming remedies to which the client would not be entitled on the facts, such as imprisonment upon a civil claim, or specific or exaggerated costs consequences”.
(b) “Making unduly aggressive and intimidating threats, such as threats which are intended to intimidate recipients into not seeking their own legal advice”.
32. That is, Candey started using SLAPPs a year and a half ago in relation to me in order to get (using false threats) that I did not tell the truth about my relationship with Candey.
33. Now for today. First of all, Candey is not intimidating me, but rather Change.org. Let me remind you in this context that the letter dated 31 January demanding to delete my petition was addressed exclusively to Change.org and I (the main and main "slanderer") found out about the existence of this letter only yesterday (while the letter of 31 January was never sent to me).
34. Secondly, in the year and a half since I terminated the contract with Candey and their threats of lawsuits and criminal prosecution against me followed, I have repeated my accusations against Candey in official and / or public statements many times. For example, for the first time this was done publicly in my August of 2022 interview with the Latvian press, which was then reprinted several times in English in the UK[2]. But Candey does not make any claims against me, nor does it make any claims against the media that published my words.
35. Third, the only exception is the platform Change.org and I attribute this to the fact that my petition has collected more than 45,000 signatures and has become one of the TOP-signed.
36. Fourth, my petition was created 3 months ago, but, for some unexplainable reason, it began to bother Candey only now, when it entered the category of TOP-signed.
37. This list of signs is not exhaustive. There are a lot of other SLAPPs signs formulated by the SRA in the corresponding Notice.
38. By the way (and this is the fifth), the use of lies in intimidating letters, aimed at deleting publically significant information, is also a sign of SLAPPs (for example: “Seeking to threaten or advance meritless claims, including in pre-action correspondence, and including claims where it should be clear that a defence to that type of claim will be successful based on what you know”.
Moreover, these are SLAPPs in the interests of rather Russian oligarchs - the defendants in my lawsuit
39. First, it is striking that Candey, referring not to me (the source of the “slander”), but to Change.org, demands to remove the petition in its entirety, although Candey makes claims not to the entire petition, but only to four phrases, about which Candey could contact me and ask me to remove only these phrases. However, Candey did not contact me, and ignored and continues to ignore my letters with questions about exactly what words in numerous publications about my relationship with Candey they consider slander. Against the backdrop of the strange silence of Candey, I was forced to turn to them twice with open letters[3].
40. At the same time, the main goal of my petition is not Candey at all. For clarity, I present screenshots of the beginning of the petition:
41. Second, the letter sent by Candey at 22:50 on Friday, 17 February, was prepared on Wednesday. The letter reads: “at the time of writing, Mr Sychev’s petition has 44,958 signatories”. But, at the time of sending the letter, the number of signatures was 45,877 and the number of signatures indicated by Candey was on Wednesday, 15 February, at approximately 16:20.
42. The answer to the question why the letter prepared on Wednesday afternoon was sent only on the night from Friday to Saturday, probably lies in the fact that it was on Friday evening in correspondence with the defendants (oligarchs) I refused their attempts to persuade me to remove the petition under various pretexts. Since the defendants themselves cannot force me to or Change.org to delete the petition (because their death threats were recorded on a dictaphone and a criminal case was opened on these threats), they apparently decided to try to do this using Candey, which, while claiming only four phrases in the petition, for some reason demands to delete not these phrases, but the entire petition.
Remark on law firm Signature Litigation (mentioned in the Candey's letter)
43. It is impossible to understand from the letter why Signature Litigation is mentioned in it. Maybe to justify the words of Candey about my paranoia.
44. The comical thing related to this situation is that before entering into the agreement with Candey, I told them that the defendants had bribed my former solicitors (Signature Litigation), and then Candey agreed with me that most likely it was so[4].
45. For information, the story with Signature Litigation is as follows (described in the petition):
___________________________________________________________
But if we talk about my former lawyers, the oligarchs did not limit themselves to bribing only Candey. Their corruption activities against my lawyers began earlier than the story with Candey – exactly when formally my lawyers were Signature Litigation. Why formally - because when entering into a contract with them, we assumed that they would find an investor to fund their work. But since it was not possible to attract investors, from a certain point on, Signature, while waiting for the investors' decision, was simply formally listed as my lawyers, doing no work other than forwarding correspondence between me and the oligarchs' lawyers.
Next, I will describe the basis of my suspicions (or rather, my confidence) that Signature Litigation has been bribed by the oligarchs either, but first I must explain why I did not make this story public before and why I decided to do so now. The fact is that this story has become public in connection with the actions of the oligarchs themselves, who are trying to present the situation in such a way that if I say that they bribed not one, but two law firms that previously represented my interests, then this supposedly proves that I am accusing everyone without exception. without any analysis, which means you can't trust me. That is, the oligarchs are trying to justify themselves (of course, without giving any details) by saying that such a fantastic scale of corrupt activities that they actually conduct cannot exist in principle, which means that my statements to the contrary cannot be taken seriously.
But let's look at the concrete facts. In the UK, there is a mechanism that is often used by unscrupulous defendants when they have nothing to object to on the merits of the claims and they know that the plaintiff has no money. Such defendants try to get (through the court) the plaintiff to provide a certain amount of security, and if the plaintiff cannot do this (as in my case), the claim is simply dismissed without consideration. For this, there is even a special term in the law – stifling a claim.
So, Signature Litigation, which was supposed to protect my interests, has done everything possible to help the defendants to stifle my claim.
Events developed in the following way. On 10 May 2021, PhosAgro sent a letter to Signature asking me to provide financial security, threatening that if I did not give a reasonable answer by 20 May, PhosAgro would go to the court. For some reason, Signature forwarded this letter to me with a two-day delay. Since the law provides for legal opportunities to resist such claims of the defendants, I prepared a corresponding response, in which I gave the legal grounds on which the demands for interim security do not comply with the law and are aimed solely at stifling the claim.
Of course, on 18 May, I sent my response to my lawyers from Signature, since exactly they were the ones who were formally listed as my representatives and were obliged to conduct correspondence (not me) and send the response to the defendants by 20 May, as was requested.
However, Signature (in particular, partner Josh Wong) wrote to me late on the evening of 19 May that it would be better not to respond to this request now (as the oligarchs demanded), but to respond in a week. On the same day, I sent a clarifying email in which I asked if it would be too late, since the defendants demanded an answer exactly by 20 May. Josh Wong responded: “A response next week will be fine. The first response to the letter in respect to security for costs will be a robust letter from Signature rejecting their request for security for costs. We can include some of your helpful points in relation to undue pressure”.
However, in the end, Signature (without any explanations) did not prepare or send any response the following week either. Taking advantage of the lack of a response, PhosAgro filed an application with the court on 1 June and wrote: “A response was requested by no later than 20 May 2021, noting that in the absence of such confirmation PhosAgro would have no choice but to make an application for security, and seek the costs of doing so from the Claimants. As at the date of this statement no response to the 10 May letter has been received”.
So, Signature has created a formal basis for PhosAgro’s application to the court.
Further events developed even more strangely. On 27 May, the owner of PhosAgro and Putin's friend Guryev, who is depicted in the photo to my petition, sent a request to Signature similar to PhosAgro's request. Signature didn't inform me about this request AT ALL. On 3 June, Guryev sent a chasing request to Signature, which Signature also did not forward to me AT ALL.
On 7 June, absolutely without my knowledge, Signature sent a reply to Guryev, in which it wrote that I would provide financial security for Guryev until 29 June, although Signature knew that in principle I could do this neither until 29 June, nor ever at all.
A day later, on 9 June, Guryev went to the court, informing Signature on the same day. For inexplicable reasons, Signature did not inform me about this until late on the evening of 10 June. From the forwarded documents of Guryev, I learned about the correspondence mentioned above, which was conducted by Signature on my behalf, but without my knowledge. I also saw from the same documents that this strange correspondence became the reason for Guryev's application to the court. There was no limit to my surprise at the strangeness of what was happening.
But that's not all. The next day, 11 June, without warning in advance, Josh Wong wrote to me: “In view of the lack of funds, the time has come for Signature to formally hand over the case to you to act as litigant in person”. Thus, on 11 June, I was left alone with the defendants' applications for financial security, which they submitted to the court, using the formal reasons provided by Signature. I was completely discouraged for two reasons: first, I saw the strange correspondence that Signature was conducting behind my back and which was the reason for the defendants to go to the court, and second, immediately after the defendants filed their applications to the court (which they filed “thanks” to the reasons created by Signature), Signature left me with all these applications and accompanying oddities one-on-one.
Leaving me alone (completely confused by all these oddities), Josh Wong promised that he would support me informally with advice. However, he began to fulfill his promise very strangely, with a delay of 4-5 days. For example, I received an urgent letter from the defendants, which said that I should take some action within 24 hours, but I did not quite understand what exactly I should do and if I should at all. I sent an email to Mr Wong asking to clarify, but he did not answer it until five days later, when I figured it out myself, as the question turned out very simple.
Thus, I do not have a single reasonable explanation for all these oddities, except that Signature also colluded with the defendants from a certain point on and began to act not in the interests of its client (me), but in the interests of my opponents, helping them in every possible way.
I wrote about my suspicions in response documents to the oligarchs' applications for interim security and since then I have practically not raised this issue. By the way, in the future, in fact, I managed to resist the demands of the defendants myself and the court in October 2021 recognized that the chances of satisfying these applications are almost zero. After that, and realizing that this method of stifling the claim would not work, the oligarchs decided to use another method, which can only be called cynical. They began to insist that the court forbid me to continue the trial in the absence of lawyers (previously bribed by them). And they successfully achieved this with the help of deputy judge Mr Beltrami KC, who turned out to be very closely connected with the lawyers of the oligarchs, but contrary to the requirements of the Giude to Judicial Conduct, chose not to disclose information about this to me. This story is described in more detail in the main text of the petition, in which I also demand an investigation into this story with Mr Beltrami KC.
But since the story with Signature became public at the initiative of the oligarchs (who, of course, never give details), I decided to speak out about this story publicly giving the facts. I have no doubt that the oligarchs bribed Signature either and I will demand that this corruption episode be investigated as well.
By the way, I recently asked Josh Wong to comment on his strange 2021 correspondence. He did not deny the existence of these oddities (but how can they be denied?), but said that even without these oddities, the defendants, in his opinion, would still have applied to the court for interim security. But this is just guessing, and the indisputable fact remains that it was Signature that (1) created formal reasons for the defendants to go to the court and (2) immediately after that left me to deal with all this alone.
Josh Wong formally denies that he colluded with the oligarchs, but it would be strange if he officially confirmed this by admitting his involvement in corruption. I will give a few quotes from further correspondence with Josh Wong:
(a) “I have huge sympathy for what you have endured and also admiration for the way you have continued with your struggle against the defendants and have not let any obstacles stand in your way. In light of all the terrible things that have happened to you and the approach taken by the defendants, I fully understand that you will be cautious about trusting anyone and sceptical about the motives of all people involved in your case”.
(b) “I agree the defendants are capable of resorting to corruption, but certainly they have not reached me and my firm”.
I decided to quote these excerpts, because while Josh Wong denies colluding with the oligarchs, he, nevertheless, confirms that they are capable of corruption in England (I think he meant corruption of judges) and that what they did to me is monstrous.
___________________________________________________________
Conclusion
46. Thus, Candey, which is already under investigation by the Legal Ombudsman, sending the letter dated 17 February to Change.org, committed two gross violations of the mandatory principles of the SRA.
47. First, this letter contains FIVE DELIBERATELY FALSE STATEMENTS, which is a gross violation of Rule 1.4 of the Code of Conduct for Firms.
48. Second, the letter has all the signs of SLAPPs, and most likely not in Candey’s own interests, but in the interests of the Russian oligarchs – my procedural opponents, which further confirms the already obvious – that Candey and these oligarchs are acting in collusion.
49. I believe that in such circumstances, the only appropriate measure that the SRA can take is close a law firm with immediate effect[5].
Igor Sychev
[1] https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/guidance/slapps-warning-notice/
[2] For example: https://ukherald.co.uk/2023/01/09/russian-emigrant-in-riga-receives-regular-threats/
[3] For example: https://ukreporter.co.uk/2023/01/09/press-release-open-letter-to-law-firm-candey/
[4] In my opinion, I even have evidence of this and I will look for them when I have enough free time for this.
[5] https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/fraud-dishonesty/legal-threats-solicitor/