Dear Supporters

The update of 26 August contained the text of my official open letter to the judge of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Bean. This week I received an official notification from the court that it refuses without any reasonable explanation to accept this letter I sent through a special form on the court website (case CA-2022-001211-B).

As a continuation of that update, I am posting for everyone to see the text of my application in the framework of this case (CA-2022-001211-B), which was being considered by Mr Justice Bean. This application is a complaint against previous decisions of the same Mr Justice Bean and I have requested that this complaint be considered by another judge. However, this complaint fell into the hands of the same judge, and he did not transfer it to another judge (although he could do this) and began to consider the complaint against himself.

The essence of the complaint is as follows. In previous decisions, Mr Justice Bean prohibited me from representing the plaintiffs at the hearings, citing the fact that I was making allegations of “wrongdoing” by Russian oligarch (defendants) and suggesting that all my statements could theoretically turn out to be unfounded (not a single such statement was considered on the merits by Mr Justice Bean, who simply assumed that all of them, without exception, may be unfounded).

In a very laconic decision dated 11 August, Mr Justice Bean wrote that the new circumstances described in my complaint about the “wrongdoing” of the Russian oligarchs, shocking any person, are totally without merits. Moreover, Mr Justice Bean wrote that if I would repeat my arguments, a civil restraint order will be issued against me.

It hurts the eyes that Mr Justice Bean did not, in his super concise decision, even briefly name the circumstances to which I referred and which are allegedly totally without merits.

As anyone can now see, these circumstances were the following:

1. Initiation, after the previous decisions of Mr Justice Bean, of a criminal investigation in England in connection with information about ordering my assassination by the Russian oligarchs (Defendants) in connection with these proceedings. The same information contains the second important part - about the total corruption by these oligarchs in the British courts in order to pervert the course of justice. Paragraphs G to T.
2. The initiation, after the previous decisions of Mr Justice Bean, of a criminal case in Latvia on the facts of numerous death threats made against me with demands to drop the lawsuit. Paragraphs 43-53.
3. Confirmation by the Latvian police of the facts of attempts to kill me in a publically dangerous way. Paragraphs 54-62.
4. The initiation, after all previous court decisions, of an investigation by the competent authority against my last lawyers, whose strange actions led me to suspect that they had colluded with the oligarchs. Paragraphs 21-42.
5. Public information about the "wrongdoing" of these oligarchs. For example, death threats against another person in connection with another lawsuit. Paragraphs 77-81.

I excluded from the text only a small part that concerns the facts of "wrongdoing" in relation to one more person (paragraph 71). Believe me, these facts are no less shocking and are connected with such an oligarch from PhosAgro, about whom the Ukrainian authorities wrote the following to justify the sanctions: “Vladimir Litvinenko owns about 21% of Russian chemical company PhosAgro listed in London. Since 1994, Litvinenko has been the rector of Saint Petersburg Mining University, where he mentored Vladimir Putin. The allotment of PhosAgro shares to Litvinenko is widely seen as a bribe to Putin”.

I believe that the decision of Mr Justice Bean of 11 August is knowingly illegal and that it is the result of the activities of Russian oligarchs aimed at perverting the course of justice (see above). I cannot explain otherwise that the initiation of a number of investigations after the previous decisions of Mr Justice Bean is, in his opinion, totally without merits in the context that absolutely all my statements about the “wrongdoing” of Putin’s oligarchs may theoretically turn out to be unfounded. Initiating investigations, the competent authorities have become convinced that there were more than good reasons for this.

Many thanks for your support!

Igor Sychev

Since the text of the application is long, I will publish it in several parts, today – part 2. The full text is available here. Part 1 was published yesterday. 

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My application in case CA-2022-001211-B (part 2)

Introduction 

    1.   I am the Second Claimant in these proceedings and the sole director and the 100% shareholder of the First Claimant, Verlox International Ltd ("Verlox"). I act as a litigant in person for both Claimants (the reason is that as a result of the deceitful actions of the Defendants described in my first witness statement (IS(A)1)[9], I was left without financial resources).

    2.   The facts and matters set out in this witness statement are within my own knowledge unless otherwise stated, and I believe them to be true. Where I refer to information supplied by others, the source of that information is identified; facts and matters derived from other sources are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

    3.   There is now produced a paginated bundle of true copy documents marked ‘IS(A)2’ which I shall refer to in this witness statement in the format IS(A)2/[Page(s)].

    4.   I give this witness statement under CPR 52.30(8) and PD 52A(7.2) in support of the Application for permission to reopen the Application for permission to appeal (IS(A)2/1-12) against the Judgment dated 27 May (IS(A)2/13-20) and Order dated 12 July (IS(A)2/21-22) of Mr Beltrami KC, sitting as a Judge of the High Court at the hearing on 27 May 2022. 

    5.   The Application for permission to appeal was refused by the Order of Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Bean dated 20 July 2022 (IS(A)2/23). My first Application dated 31 August 2022 for reopening the Application for permission to appeal (IS(A)2/24-27) supported by my first witness statement (attached separately) was refused by the same Justice (Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Bean) on 3 October 2022 (IS(A)2/28). 

    6.   This (second) application under CPR 52.30 is being submitted in connection with several events that occurred after all the above-mentioned decisions were made and which indicate (1) the wrongness of these decisions and (2) the extreme unfairness of the current situation. 

    7.   I think it is extremely important to add that the decision of Mr Beltrami KC became, indeed, fateful for these proceedings, since all subsequent decisions that actually led to the stifling of the claim refer to the decision of Mr Beltrami KC and are based on its conclusions, the most important of which are made on the basis of his theoretical assumptions.

    8.   Mr Beltrami KC was considering my application under CPR 39.6 that I, as the Second Claimant and sole director and owner of the First Claimant, may represent the First Claimant at further court hearings (the Representation Application).

    9.   The need to submit such an application was caused by the fact that the Claimants, due to a long-term (8 years) conflict with the Defendants, were left without money and since about 2018 we cannot afford to pay for the services of lawyers. 

10.   And this applies not only to these proceedings, but also to other proceedings related in one way or another to my relationship with the Defendants. In particular, I am an accused in the Russian criminal case 304669, fabricated by the Defendants in 2015-2016, with the help of which the Defendants tried to take me hostage (and were sure that they succeeded)[10] and extorted from me, demanding that the amount of their obligations to me be reduced by 5 times and that I pay a bribe to the investigators involved by the Defendants in the fantastic sum of $ 4 million. 

11.   These events are described, for example, in paragraphs 56-67, 79-94, 96-97 of the witness statement of my former Russian lawyer Mr Stepanov (attached separately), of which I will quote paragraph 97: “From my many years of experience I can declare that I have never met a stranger and more absurd criminal case and have never heard of anything like it. In terms of the number and quality of elementary violations, this criminal case has no analogues. I am convinced that this criminal case is completely fabricated and was initiated not with the aim of investigating something, but with the aim of being used as an instrument of the crime committed against Sychev, that is, to be an instrument of illegal pressure on Sychev in the conflict with PhosAgro”.

12.   Despite the fact that the Defendants were sure that they had taken me hostage by confiscating my foreign passport found during the search, I managed to leave Russia. I have been arrested in absentia in Russia, and in 2016 I was put on the international wanted list. However, Interpol, to which I applied on my own initiative, explaining the ridiculous circumstances of my criminal prosecution, terminated my international search in 2017. 

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13.   Russia has not challenged this decision of Interpol, having the opportunity to do so.

14.   Since 2016, I have been living in Europe (Latvia), the authorities of which granted me refugee status in 2018[11] because of the fabricated criminal case in Russia, as well as because the Defendants in Russia repeatedly tried to kill me, and the Russian investigative authorities, having proved this fact, refuse to investigate it[12].

15.   That is, since 2018 I have been under international protection under the 1951 Convention, of which the UK is also a member.

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16.  In 2018, due to the fact that I ran out of money, I was left without lawyers in the Russian criminal case. Russian legislation provides for an unconditional obligation of investigators to provide a free state lawyer to the accused who does not have a lawyer under the agreement. After being left without lawyers, I applied to the investigator for a state lawyer, but despite the unconditional obligation to do so and my dozens of complaints about it, I was never granted a state lawyer and this egregious situation has been going on for the sixth year. Therefore, I am forced to act as a "litigant in person” as an accused in the criminal case either. 

17.   I am also forced to act as a litigant in person as a victim in a recent criminal case initiated in Latvia about numerous death threats against me and even my children, accompanied by demands from the Defendants to drop this lawsuit or assign it to the parties related with the Defendants. This criminal case will be discussed in more detail below, as its initiation in October 2022 is one of the reasons why I submit this application under CPR 52.30. 

18.  As for these proceedings, I made colossal and unprecedented attempts to attract third-party funding and thereby automatically solve the problem with paying for lawyers' services. Incomplete list of my 180 (!!!) attempts is given in the Schedule to my first witness statement and I attach it as Schedule 3 to this witness statement also. However, all these attempts were unsuccessful for reasons unrelated to the strength of the lawsuit (which is confirmed by several law firm and KC at once[13]). The reasons for the refusal of potential investors are related to the fact that the Defendants are Russian individuals and the company which may be resulted in problems with the enforcement of the court decision. This problem became even more significant after the Putin regime started the criminal war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on some of the Defendants (sanctions, in particular, were imposed by the UK, US, EU, Canada, Australia, Japan and other countries against the Fifth Defendant - the main owner of PhosAgro, since he is closely associated with Putin and according to investigative journalists[14] and anti-corruption campaigners[15], paid a bribe to Putin in the amount of a 20% stake in PhosAgro worth over 1 billion pounds).

19.  Refusing the Representation Application, Mr Beltrami KC, in particular, referred to the fact that I make allegations against the Defendants, that is, in fact, that I am telling the truth. Mr Beltrami KC called my allegations “a very strong contrary factor against the application" (paragraph 33). It is important, that Mr Beltrami KC did not, in principle, consider any of my allegations on the merits, and paragraph 33 of the Judgment is worded as follows: “Given the constraints of the application and the timing of the hearing I have not engaged in -- and I want to be absolutely clear about this -- the details or the merits of any of those allegations. It would be quite wrong for me do so, and I say nothing about them either way because I cannot do so. What I can say, and as is relevant to the application, is that the fact that such widespread allegations have been made is itself, in my judgment, a very strong factor against the application. Such allegations are easy to make but difficult to substantiate. If made and if made on this scale, they tend to take over the litigation, they distract from the true issues, they add immeasurably to the costs and they take a personal toll on the individuals and/or companies necessarily concerned. All of which may of course, but I express no view either way, be entirely unwarranted if they are unfounded. There is therefore, in my judgment, a very good reason to do all that is possible to ensure that such allegations should be made, if at all, only through the filter of a regulated firm with an objective perspective and professional responsibilities, rather than by a company acting in effect as a litigant in person. In summary, I see the fact of the allegations as a very strong contrary factor against the application”.  

20. Below I will describe the events that occurred after this Judgment (as well as the decisions of the Court of Appeal), which refute the theoretical assumption made by Mr Beltrami KC that all my accusations may theoretically be incorrect. Moreover, this theoretical premise has been refuted by the competent state authorities, who, unlike Mr Beltrami KC, had a lot of time to study the essence of the issues under consideration. 

First new circumstance

21.  First in importance (and last in chronology) is that the British public authority (the Legal Ombudsman), considering my complaint filed back in 2021, on 12 January 2023 (that is, very recently) initiated an investigation against my last solicitors – the law firm Candey, recognizing that the information provided in my complaint is sufficient to initiate such an investigation. I enclose[16] the correspondence with the investigator, including the final list of issues for investigation, consisting of 10 (!!!) positions.

22.  The fact is that in July 2021, I managed to find this law firm, which practices extremely exotic and the only possible for me payment terms – DBA without ATE insurance. After checking my case and making sure that it was impossible to lose, Candey agreed to represent the Claimants.

23.  However, a month later, I was forced to terminate our agreement, because on the eve of our response to the Defendants' applications for challenging the jurisdiction and for security for costs with a total volume of more than 2,600 pages, Candey's lawyers began to aggressively and persistently demand that our response be presented only on 3-5 pages, consisting exclusively of headlines and hints, and without supporting evidence at all. 

24. Schedule 1 contains a description of my last two conversations with Candey, with the hyperlinks to the audio recordings, confirming (1) the aggressively insistent advancement of such a strange demand; (2) Candey's refusal to answer my questions about the reasons for such strange tactics; and (3) that the Defendants' representatives, on the eve of signing by me the agreement with Candey, explicitly warned me that the Defendants would bribe Candey.

25. It was this inadequate behavior by my solicitors that led me to terminate our agreement on 31 August 2021 (the deadline was 1 September) and assume that Candey colluded with the Defendants. Since then, I have been forced to act as a litigant in person on behalf of both Claimants and therefore was forced to make the Representation Application under CPR 39.6.

26. I have to immediately note that this approach to litigation was considered very strange by Mr Justice Jacobs at the direction hearing on 8 October 2021, which, among other things, was devoted to the question of the volume of the Claimants' response to the 2600-page applications of the Defendants. Regarding Candey's extremely strange 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) plus an exhibit with confirming evidence.

27.  But in addition to the fact that the Judge actually agreed that Candey's 3-5-page demand was clearly inadequate, on 8 October 2021, the Defendants as well actually agreed with the same thing (as strange and comical as it may sound in the context under consideration). The fact is that the Defendants' barristers (I need to remind you that there are three active Defendants and all of them are represented by the most expensive lawyers, since, unlike me, they are billionaires) have the opportunity during the hearing to express their opinions on the reasonable length of the Claimants' response to their applications for challenging jurisdiction and security for costs. And none of the Defendants' barristers suggested that such a response should be limited to 3-5 pages. On the contrary, they agreed that the volume of the response should be as suggested and subsequently approved by the Judge. I enclose the transcript of the hearing, the Judgment and the Order (IS(A)2/84-130) so that you can recheck the correctness of stated above.  

28. Thus, on 8 October 2021 I found support not only from the Judge, but also from the barristers of the three Defendants, who acted on the instructions of highly paid Defendants' solicitors. In my opinion, this argument is the most eloquent.

29. And exactly for this reason, I sent the complaint against Candey a day after this hearing, namely on 10 October 2021, to the Legal Ombudsman, who, after 15 months, finally initiated the investigation into this story.

30. Even the fact that Candey's clearly inappropriate behavior was found by the Legal Ombudsman to be worthy of investigation is enough to review the decisions of Mr Beltrami KC and Mr Justice Bean. I hope, anyone will agree that it is clearly unfair (to put it mildly) to actually stop the plaintiff's access to justice (by prohibiting him from continuing the proceedings without lawyers) against the background of the fact that the plaintiff was left without lawyers in an extremely difficult situation due to at least clearly inadequate (unprofessional) behavior of those lawyers. 

31. And if we assume that the reason for the obviously inadequate behavior of the lawyers was their collusion with the Defendants (that is, a corruption crime, the victims of which were the Claimants), then the injustice and even the strangeness of such a decision of the Judge is squared or even cubed.

32. The previous version of paragraphs 32-35 about my crime report to the London Police is no longer relevant in connection with the events described in paragraphs A to T above. In order not to break the numbering of paragraphs, I will leave paragraphs 33-35 blanks.

36. I would like to draw attention to the fact that the crime reports are also about other crimes (for example, extortion and use of a forged document by the Defendants in these proceedings).

37. By the way, regarding the use of the forged document by the Defendants, Candey confirmed this fact and even agreed that information about this should be included (albeit in the form of hints and headings and without confirming evidence) in a 3-5 page document on the part of the Claimants. I will quote verbatim the first part of my conversation with Candey on 27 August 2021 (line 1 of paragraph 3 of Schedule 1): “Mr Botiuk (Candey): 100% we need to put all of these in the context of the answer, as Ben [Mr Wells from Candey] correctly said, we need to put in the highlighted points from your evidence which would be 3 to 5 pages of the highlighted points that there were threats to your life, that there were forged documents, those issues that the personal representations (?) [Adam Arif from Candey has translated this into Russian as «личные угрозы» or personal threats] made to you by the beneficial owners. All of those facts will be set out in summary form but in no more than 3 to 5 pages”.

38. I also consider it necessary to draw the Court's attention to the following. After initiating the investigation by the Legal Ombudsman, Candey provided deliberately false information to this body, and this falsity is very easily verified and refuted. In this regard, I also had to send a complaint to the Solicitor Regulation Authority (IS(A)2/131-150), since the SRA's rules prohibit law firms from providing false information not only to the Courts, but in general in principle.

39.  So that you have an idea of the primitive nature of lies on the part of Candey, I will quote one fragment of my complaint to the SRA:

(1)   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”.

(2)   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. 

(3)   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”.

(4)   The next day, without waiting for a response from Candey, it was I who filed the Notice of change of legal representation (N434).

40. The SRA, in the email dated 19 April 2023 (IS(A)2/151-153), informed me of the initiation of their investigation and made the following comment: “you have raised serious issues of misconduct”. Thus, Candey is now under investigation by two bodies at once: the Legal Ombudsman and SRA.

41. The important comment on my petition mentioned above (in paragraphs 32-35, the updated version of which is in paragraphs A to T above): its main topic is death threats from the Defendants and my desire to protect myself with the help of publicity from bringing threats to life (regarding death threats and real reasons to be feared of these threats, it will be below - in the section about the second new circumstance). Please also see paragraphs A to T above.

42. Finalizing this part, I would like to emphasize that in paragraph 32, which precedes paragraph 33 of the Judgment quoted in paragraph 19 above, Mr Beltrami KC cited my allegations against Candey as the reason for his decision (“allegations <…> against in some cases the claimants' own solicitors”).

To be continued.