Regretfully, it became evident that the controversial Judge, the late Mr Justice Laddie (above) appointed to hear the case was not impartial. He strongly objected to our “high-profile campaign” against Shell and failed to disclose his connections with Shell.
Before the trial began Mr Justice Laddie notified my solicitors that he was a participant in the Shell SMART multi retail partner loyalty card scheme. The promotional concept that happened to be the subject of the litigation. I advised that this was not a problem. It was the only Shell connection that he declared.
Condemned our campaigning activities
On the first morning of the trial, out of the blue, Mr Justice Laddie made comments signalling that our campaigning activity against Shell was already at the forefront of his mind. He brought up the subject by saying to my barrister Geoffrey Cox: “I know at one stage your client was a moving force behind the body which was protesting at Shell’s allegedly improper business practices.”
This was a reference to the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group set up by my father and me which hundreds of Shell UK retailers and suppliers joined.
The “ethical statement that had been made on behalf of Shell” referred to in the same exchange was presumably a reference to Shell’s Statement of General Business Principles.
The following is an extract from page 17 of Shell’s Counterclaim:
“Can the Directors of Shell UK be trusted to uphold the code-of-ethics published by the Royal Dutch Shell Group? Based on our experience the answer is no. Shell’s Statement of General Business Principles appears to be nothing more than a PR inspired, confidence trick. Mere sleight-of-hand. A sham.”
The judge did not suggest that our campaigning activities were illegal but as will become clear, he did frown on them, to put it mildly.
Given his strong feelings on the subject, he should have stepped down and not allowed his negative first impression to fester.
The relevant early exchanges in open court can be read immediately below.
His comments were Innocuous at first sight, but when considered in conjunction with his later recital at the end of the trial of a letter I had sent to Marketing Week magazine, it was plain that he was appalled from the outset by my campaigning activities against Shell.
The letter in question was published by Marketing Week magazine on 25 February 1999.
The judge condemned my letter and made clear his strong objections to my “high profile campaign,” listing my activities in this regard, including operating websites.
Strangely, he said not a single word about Shell’s use of undercover activity mentioned in the same letter.
Shell’s covert activities were ignored, my perfectly lawful campaigning castigating Shell for not abiding by its own claimed business principles was viewed by him as beyond the pale. See the section entitled SHELL BUSINESS PRINCIPLES at the foot of this webpage.
The incendiary remarks were made by Mr Justice Laddie at the conclusion of the trial in the so-called “Judges Comments” – comments made by him when he was supposedly going to “rubber stamp” a settlement agreed between the parties. His rant about my campaigning potentially put the settlement at risk and showed just how worked up he was on a subject that had grabbed his attention from the outset.
His related comments on day one were an early warning signal. He had apparently formed a smouldering bias against me on those grounds from the kick-off.
I was told that it was not necessary to attend court in relation to the settlement since it was just a formality. Hence, I was not there to hear what the judge said and only obtained a transcript of his comments years later after Shell director Richard Wiseman brought them to my attention.
I did know from my solicitor Richard Woodman that there was some heated discussion between the Judge and Geoffrey Cox on that last day in court, but until Mr Wiseman mentioned that he had a copy of a transcript of the “Judges Comments”, I was not aware of their existence.
Since the case had been resolved in a “compromise settlement” the Judge was not required to deliver a verdict but insisted on making comments about me, even though I was not there.
If I had been present and had listened to his allegations and ranting I would probably have said something that would have ended up with me being held in contempt of court.
If he had delivered a verdict in Shell’s favour, I would have been legally entitled to ask for leave to appeal. There is apparently no right to do so in respect of “Judges Comments”. That is plainly wrong.
By the time of making his Judges Comments, Mr Justice Laddie had apparently decided that the accusations were not all tosh as he had once described them. The Judge said he was considering calling in the Director of Public Prosecutions because he thought that the allegations about me made in court by Shell’s QC (later withdrawn by Shell) had more than passing strength to them.
He also said that AJL “worked hard for his employer and put its commercial interests before the interests of outside firms.”
This seems to be a reference to AJL’s Machiavellian “Keep Rejects Holding” plan found in discovery documents. An outright conspiracy, led by AJL, to scam a group of outside firms into investing more time and disclosing more proprietary information to Shell, in the false expectation, deliberately dangled by AJL, that they were still in the running for a Shell Smart contact. The scheme was totally unethical, possibly illegal and completely at odds with Shell’s claimed business principles.
Why would the Judge praise AJL for such dishonest conduct in its dealings with outside firms?
As can be seen from the transcript, there was a heated exchange between the Judge and my lead barrister, Geoffrey Cox, who happened to be a criminal law specialist. It is clear from the explosive exchange recorded in the court transcript that the Judge was blatantly biased against me.
According to Geoffrey Cox, the row over the Judges Comments continued in the Judge’s chambers. This is when the Judge found out that he had been badly misled.
SETTLEMENT TERMS WITHHELD FROM THE JUDGE
Shell had withheld the true terms of settlement from Mr Justice Laddie. This is confirmed in an email sent to me by Richard Wiseman on 17 June 2008 – part of a related string of emails providing details of the overall background circumstances. I did not know that the settlement terms disclosed to the Judge were incomplete and therefore deceptive. Hence the instructions to deceive the judge MUST have come on the instruction of Shell.
When discussing the settlement terms with the Judge, Geoffrey Hobbs QC is on record in the transcript as saying: “…your Lordship has seen the paperwork.” It turns out that this was untrue. Part of the paperwork was secretly withheld.
At the time of making his injudicious comments, the Judge was totally unaware that Shell had paid my legal fees and that I had received a secret payment. He probably thought I had surrendered when in fact it was the other way round. I would not agree to settle without a substantial payment.
He did see the DEED OF COMPROMISE and its annexe’s 1, 2 and 3, two of which were Orders and the third item a press release. Both Orders indicated that there was no order “as to costs.” The document kept secret from the Judge contained the following clause: “The parties undertake to keep this Deed and the contents (including the fact of a payment being made) confidential to the parties and their professional advisors save that disclosure may take place under compulsion of law.”
Shell paid my legal costs and I received a settlement payment. A totally different outcome than was indicated to the Judge, who had already admitted, as recorded in the previous chapter, that he had lost control of the trial.
DISCOVERY WITHHELD FROM THE JUDGE
The Judge was also unaware when making his biased comments of a material omission by Shell, which seriously undermined the trial. Richard Wiseman, the Legal Director of Shell responsible for the litigation and who attended court almost every day of the trial and was responsible for the Counterclaim Shell brought against us, had not disclosed crucial evidence relating to the Counterclaim.
The “PARTICULARS” section of the Counterclaim listed information published by us as part of our campaigning activities. Shell provided examples to the Judge.
However, Shell withheld from the Judge important items of evidence proving that Shell had published material attacking us.
Firstly a so-called “factsheet” was published and circulated to Shell staff in November 1998 by “Shell U.K. Limited Public Affairs UKCM and Legal UKLG” under the headline: “DON MARKETING: THE FACTS.” The text alleged that I had acted dishonourably. As can be seen via the link, a substantial part of the factsheet supplied to me by Shell years later in response to a Subject Access Request (SAR) under the UK Data Protection Act, was redacted by Shell. It may well have contained further defamatory comments falsely presented as fact.
Secondly, a magazine article penned by Richard Wiseman (in his capacity as Legal Director of Shell) was, unbeknown to us, published in a Shell magazine in November 1998.
These vital items of evidence were not disclosed to me by Shell in the Counterclaim proceedings. This was a breach of discovery rules. Neither appears in the list of evidence.
This non-disclosure was important in the context of the comments made by Mr Justice Laddie, which made it clear he had taken exception to the aforementioned letter I sent to Marketing Week magazine that the editor decided to publish on 25 February 1999.
My letter was brief, taking up less than 20% of a magazine page, and was not defamatory. If it had been, Marketing Week would never have published it. In comparison, the whole page article by Richard Wiseman in a Shell magazine was devoted exclusively to me and the content was undoubtedly defamatory, accusing me of being dishonourable and of smearing AJL. It was published months before my letter to the Editor of Marketing Week.
Under the circumstances, it is easy to understand why Shell did not disclose the existence of the article authored by their Legal Director as they were legally obliged to do.
The non-disclosure by Shell of the most important element in the settlement terms (who paid who) and the withholding by Shell of absolutely crucial evidence, misled the Judge by creating a completely erroneous picture of the true circumstances.
It is worth bearing in mind the following observation attributed to Sir John Donaldson:
“Litigation is not a war or even a game. It is designed to do real justice between opposing parties and, if the court does not have all the relevant information [emphasis added], it cannot achieve this object” (Davies v Eli Lilly & Co [1987] 1 All ER 801). See “All cards on the table” – the litigant’s duty of disclosure and inspection.”
For reasons that I will explain, I agreed to an unsatisfactory outcome, including a so-called joint press statement announcing a stalemate outcome, the content of which was deliberately contrived by Shell to deceive the media.
Inserted comments of Alfred Donovan on the Judges Comments
Geoffrey Cox, the lead counsel for John Donovan, identified the two documents handed to the Judge for his consent – the first being a deed of compromise and the second a draft order which also contained a “DRAFT PRESS RELEASE”. The content and tone of the documents including the draft press release gave the overall impression of a “stalemate” result in which my son had dropped his Smart claim and related libel action against Shell without receiving ANY benefit from Shell. The true situation was rather different. There was an even more important document withheld from the Judge. Since neither my son nor I gave any instructions that any terms should be withheld from him. I can only speculate that the instructions come from Shell. It would entirely be in keeping with its corporate culture of cover-up and deception as witnessed in the reserves scandal involving the same management.
The Judge made the point that my son could not drop the action “without leave of the court”. Mr Justice Laddie was therefore entitled to believe that in requesting his consent. the parties involved had put before him the true terms of settlement. As indicated below this was not the case.
The Judge failed to say that the trial was far from near a conclusion. AJL was still being cross-examined. The vast majority of Shell’s witnesses had yet to give evidence and therefore had not been cross-examined. No evidence had been heard or documents considered in respect of Shell’s Counterclaim against my son and separately against me. The trail was only halfway through.
In the light of the expert advice from criminal law specialist, Mr Cox, the Judge downgraded his finding that “the allegations made by Mr Hobbs in this regard have more than passing strength” to “my suspicions”.
The “deed” mentioned by Geoffrey Hobbs QC was a legal document which recorded secret terms of settlement which were WITHHELD from Mr Justice Laddie including provision for Shell to pay my sons legal fees (total legal fees apparently amounted to well over £1 million pounds. In addition, further secret arrangements covered a substantial payment mode to my son to drop the SMART claim. Consequently the Judge was unaware of the true basis of settlement before making his comments and no doubt thought that my son had accepted the compromise settlement on the basis implied by the draft press release. Shell circulated a press release within days of these heated exchanges taking place in which Shell withdrew the false allegations against my son by Mr Hobbs which had first prompted the Judge to make his comments.
The one thing the “Judges Comments” did not do is allow the parties to “put their dispute behind them”. Two years after the “Judges Comments” were made. Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman used them maliciously to denigrate my son to o third party company. In do doing he invalidated the settlement and undermined the press release circulated by Shell at the time of settlement withdrawing all allegations made against my son.
In fact the “soothing words” cited by the Judge had been paid for by Shell.
What about the “long term and painful scars” inflicted on my son by the “Judges Comments” later spitefully used by Shell senior management as indicated above.
The Judge did not hear all of the evidence in the trial nor were our previous successful High Court Claims against Shell dealt with in his court.
Simply because AJL was the key Shell manager responsible as the evidence in the previous cases proved – why did the Judge think Shell had settled for hundreds of thousands of pounds if AJL was innocent of wrong-doing?
The Judge neglected to mention that my son had been under fire in an even more dramatic cross-examination also spread over three days which had culminated in an entrapment plot fronted by Geoffrey Hobbs QC – a court room ambush which involved an outright deception, apparently carried out with the consent of the Judge. Under the circumstances the Judges comments were blatantly biased.
It was not just a case of a once off dinner with directors of Option One. Apart from the dinners at Mr l.azenby’s home and ot restaurants there were trips to the theatre. There was also the issue of AJL’s offshore bank account, details of which were found in AJL’s diaries. Option One was the agency to whom AJL seemed to funnel all contracts, miraculously even the multi-million pounds Shell SMART contract for which Option One did not even tender. Documents provided incontrovertible proof that AJL deliberately cheated and deceived companies which participated in the relevant tendering process. This was the “sensational” evidence referenced to in my son’s letter published in Marketing Week magazine – see below.
It is evident from his own words above that the Judge read the Marketing Week article published in February 1999.
One paragraph in the Marketing Week article was devoted to the THREE PREVIOUS HIGH COURT ACTIONS my son and I SUCCESSFULLY brought against Shell which Shell settled out of court in each case. All three claims involved AJL. We even received an unsolicited letter of apology from Shell Chairman Dr Chris Fay. Shell lawyers also made on the record admissions of wrongdoing. There are transcripts of recorded telephone conversations proving how AJL purposely deceived us. Why was none of this information about his prior convictions brought up in court? How on earth could the Judge give this serial poacher of ideas absolution in respect of claims which the Judge did not hear and which had already been settled at a cost of several hundred thousand pounds to Shell?
Another paragraph in the Marketing Week article read by Mr Justice Laddie stated that Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman had admitted in writing the activities of undercover investigators who had engaged in outright deception on behalf of Shell. When the cloak and dagger activities were investigated by the Police. Shell failed to disclose that it had an associated company with common directors/ shareholders which engaged in espionage activities, including using undercover agents. Shell later admitted that its agents had engaged in sabotage, infiltration. deception, intelligence gathering etc on Shell’s behalf. If the Police had known about Shell’s close association with a shadowy private spy firm linked to MI6 their line of enquiry might have token a different path. For some reason the Judge asked not a single question about t he undercover activity he had read about in the Marketing Week article and which was also detailed at length in numerous other evidence put before him.
Mr Cox made it clear that his questions to AJL were with “proper foundation”. He also courageously – with as much respect as he could muster – openly chastised the Judge for his comments.
Mr Cox made the point that my son’s cross-examination also took two and a half days and was just as intense – so why had the Judge praised AJL in this regard but not my son?
What about the court room ambush by Geoffrey Hobbs involving a motorbike messenger supposedly on his way to the court with implied incriminating documents? In fact it all a total fabrication. There was no motorbike, no messenger and no documents in transit. Yet the Judge allowed this outright deception and attempt at entrapment to be carried out in his court room. Why? My son’s ordeal was in fact much more severe than the cross-examination of Shell executive AJL yet AJL was praised by the Judge for his performance under fire. In addition to the ambush charade the trial was suspended while my sons’ house was searched directly as a result of the false allegations. It is notable that not one word of acknowledgement of my son’s ordeal was made by the Judge until Mr Cox made the above comments which the Judge could not argue with because they were true.
The following is an extract from an email my son received on 18 June 1999 from his solicitor after his cross examination had finished: “I tried to ring but the answerphone was on so I left a message. I hope you arrived back home safely and are having a well-eamed rest. You performed magnificently in the witness box. You have done credit to yourself and have earned the admiration and respect of all concerned.” He obviously was not speaking for Mr Justice Laddie. If the Judge was so obviously biased when commenting on matters of indisputable fact – the amount of time spent under arduous cross-examination by each of the two main protagonists, how could any reliance be placed on his impartiality in relation to issues which were less certain? The Judge failed to mention that AJL was still being cross-examined when Shell decided it was an opportune moment to settle? This was before Mr Cox had got onto further questions about AJL’s close association with directors of Option One.
The Judge had been given misleading information because Shell was intent on keeping the true terms of settlement from the media and Shell shareholders. This is popularly known as a cover-up. The Judges consent was rendered invalid because the compromise settlement Mr Justice Laddie sanctioned by a judicial order was not the settlement which actually took place. This is confirmed by the transcript of the “Judges Comments”
The payment my son received was considerably less than he had anticipated and overall he was out of pocket. Thus the settlement did not constitute a win but neither was it a stalemate. The unsatisfactory terms were negotiated while he was under immense pressure as a result of the false accusations in court, the undercover activity during the run up to the trial, the sustained campaign of threats including threats of violence against his family and witnesses and the series of suspicious series of burglaries at the homes of his solicitor in Croydon, a key witness in Norfolk and at his own residence.
No mention was made by the Judge of the three previous settlements made by Shell in our favour. We received hundreds of thousands of pounds from Shell in settlement of the claims. AJL was the key Shell executive involved in all three of t he previous claims. The Judge also failed to mention the unsolicited letter of apology we received from Shell Chairman Dr Chris Fay. Admissions of wrongdoing was made on the record by Shell and in writing by its lawyers. It was therefore inexplicable and nonsensical for the Judge to clear AJL of ANY wrong doing. A senior independent lawyer who had interviewed AJL at length when acting as a mediator in respect of two earlier claims stated in the presence of witnesses that it was the view of him and his co-mediator, another independent lawyer. that Mr (AJL) had “pissed on Don Marketing from a very great height”.
It was only because of the blatantly biased nature of the “Judges Comments” – one-sided in favour of Shell/AJL, that Geoffrey Cox was provoked into revealing the true settlement terms in the Judges chambers immediately after the heated exchanges in open court.
Mr Justice Laddie Judge failed to deal impartially with matters of incontrovertible fact – the respective amount of recorded time spent under cross-examination by Shell’s key witness compared with my son. He also displayed bias in his comments. Consequently, I can surely be forgiven for doubting his impartially when dealing with matters of subjective opinion? Let me make it plain: I have never read such patently one-sided comments as those made by Mr Justice Laddie. Why did he make any comments at all and why were they so completely one-sided? It is bizarre and inexplicable why the Judge went so far out of his way to please Shell/ AJL.
To be fair. Mr Justice Laddie like the rest of the global population probably had an entirely different view of Shell’s standing and reputation at the time of the trial than is the case now. Most of us thought we could truly be sure of Shell. The same Shell senior management figures who gave their full support to AJL in the SMART trial were responsible for the reserves scandal which has destroyed Shell’s reputation and brought about he end of a once great British company, The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company plc. Incriminating emails proved how Shell directors had lied and deceived investors. Shell has paid $150 million in fines to the regulatory authorities for misleading the markets and relevant directors are still under criminal investigation as well as being defendants in multi-billion dollar US class action lawsuits. The scandal was described in t he BBC Money Programme as the biggest investor fraud in history.
As can be seen below, by co-incidence or otherwise, Mr Justice Laddie became the first high court judge to resign in decades. This occurred soon after we wrote to every MP drawing their attention to our case and his conduct. Shortly thereafter in another astonishing twist, he joined a consultancy founded by a lifetime friend, which had Shell as a client.
Updated in June 2024 with the above comments by Alfred Donovan in italics and the related comment in this paragraph: Here we are decades later, with Shell still paying the price for taking on the wrong people – literally billions of pounds damage to Shell – due to the continued existence of our Shell focussed websites attracting important whistleblower information. This includes evidence and press coverage of the Brent Bravo disaster, the reserves scandal the Sakhalin II debacle and the ongoing Prelude LNG ill-fated white elephant project.
PRESS COVERAGE OF THE OUTCOME
There were a number of articles published about the outcome, all based on the false information in the press release designed to portray Shell in a favourable light. As per previous settlements with Shell, nothing was what it seemed.
East Anglian Daily Times article 7 July 1999: “Stalemate for marketing firm’s ‘stolen’ idea claim”
Marketing Week article 8 July 1999: “Don ends legal proceedings against Shell UK”
Bury Free Press article 9 July 1999: “Shell claim is settled”
Marketing Magazine article 28 July 1999: “Shell has settled out of court with John Donovan”
Debrief newsletter published July 1999: “SHELL IN HIGH COURT SUIT OVER SMARTCARD SCHEME”
Forecourt Trader article August 1999: “Shell action abandoned”
Incentive Today July/August 1999: “Don and Shell end Smart row” (the article suggests the settlement may have cleared the way for a Shell-Texaco merger).
Like the judge, the news media were also deceived about the outcome.
UNDISCLOSED SHELL CONNECTIONS
The Moody-Stuart family?
Mark Moody-Stuart was at the relevant time Group Chairman of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. He and his wife Judy had become personally involved in the litigation.
The name of Mark Moody-Stuart appears many times in the transcript of the trial.
My father had received a heartfelt handwritten letter from the wife of Sir Mark a few months before the trial, followed up by a kind handwritten note just before the trial commenced. The note was in response to my father’s equally heartfelt reply to her original letter.
During the opening days of the trial, Shell’s solicitors put a settlement offer to my father. They said it was their intention to bring the offer to the attention of the court. On 28 June 1999, my father responded asking that his response, which included a copy of his reply letter to Judy Moody-Stuart, also be provided to the court.
Despite the prominence of the Moody-Stuart name in the trial, the judge did not disclose that he personally knew Tom Moody-Stuart, the barrister son of Mark and Judy. They both belonged to the same law chambers.
I was informed that Mark Moody-Stuart had personally approved the settlement. The full set of settlement documents may have also been withheld from him and his senior management colleagues, just as they were from the Judge. My solicitors represented me in the negotiations. I only know what I insisted upon as a last-ditch negotiating position, what I was told in response, what was set out in writing, and what I received into my bank account.
I agreed to the compromise settlement purely because of the immense pressure put on me as a result of Shell’s machinations, with the dire possibility of Shell ending up as my main creditor. It was the second or third “peace treaty” settlement offer made by Shell during the trial. It came when the cross-examination of AJL was in progress and about to reach a climax.
In November 2002, we wrote to the Judge via his Clerk, Mr Peter Smith, concerning a possible conflict of interest in respect of his connection with Tom Moody-Stuart, but as can be seen in the email correspondence, the judge refused to enter into correspondence or comment on the matter.
Related extracts from a faxed letter I sent to Sir Mark Moody-Stuart on 7 June 2004
5. Your wife, Lady Judy Moody-Stuart, subsequently personally intervened in the SMART dispute without your knowledge or consent by writing directly to me. I engaged in correspondence with her which was supplied to the Trial Judge, Mr Justice Laddie, via Shell’s solicitors, DJ Freeman.
6. In November 2002 you requested on behalf of your barrister son, Mr Tom Moody-Stuart, a copy of a manuscript I had written which included references to you, your wife, and your son (and his connection via the Law Chambers at 8 New Square with the trial Judge, Mr Justice Laddie). I have no reason to believe that your son is anything other than a man of the very highest integrity. I have only asked legitimate questions about any professional connection between him and the Judge at that time. If they did know each other, the Judge should have recused himself from hearing the trial.
His long time friend, Mr Tony Willoughby
After his sudden resignation as a judge, Sir Hugh Laddie QC joined an IP firm founded by his friend of 35 years, Tony Willoughby. Willoughby & Partners AKA Rouse & Co. Shell was a long-term client.
This is a link to a press statement dated 22 June 2005 downloaded from the Rouse website on 5 March 2006 announcing that Sir Hugh Laddie had left the Hign Court to join Willoughby & Partners/Rouse Legal.
This is a link to a “client and cases” webpage downloaded from the Rouse website on 26 July 2005 listing Shell as a client.
The Judge ended up working for a firm that had Shell as a client.
When I sent an email on 24 November 2008 to Richard Wiseman, in his then capacity as the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell plc, Shell was still listed on the Rouse International website as a client with Sir Hugh Laddie and Tony Willougby, both listed as consultants.
The following is an extract from the same email string.
It was sent to Mr Wiseman by John Donovan.
You have, of course, also had a commercial relationship with Laddie. Professor Sir Hugh Laddie QC as he is now known, works as a consultant to an IP law firm founded by a long-term friend, Tony Willoughby of Willoughby & Partners… who had Shell as a client at the time of the trial (and still boasts of having Shell as a client).
Mr Wiseman was Chairman of a law conference in which Professor Sir Hugh Laddie QC was one of his invited speakers.
Extracts from LegalWeek.com:
Laddie move prompts ban review: “Justice Laddie’s decision to become a consultant causes controversy”
Friends of Mr Justice Laddie, the convivial senior judge of the Patents Court, had been sensing for some time that he was not his usual self.
“…he was to join international IP consultancy Rouse & Co and its associated UK firm Willoughby & Partners as a consultant.
“Laddie’s friendship with Willoughby stretches back to 1973…”
“Laddie’s move has also been linked to sustained controversy…”
“At any other time, one suspects that Mr Justice Laddie’s decision to quit the High Court and join his old chums at Willoughby & Partners ”
Extracts from an article published by Lawyer.com
Mr Justice Laddie has always aroused passions. One particularly bitter IP solicitor recently penned an open letter to Laddie’s successor, Mr Justice Kitchin, which is a thinly veiled attack on the former judge.
Laddie’s final defining controversy came in June. He became the first judge to resign from the bench in 35 years. To make matters worse, he announced that he was joining IP consultancy Rouse & Co, to be based with the firm’s UK legal arm Willoughby & Partners.
Unsurprisingly, Laddie has little truck with this line of argument. “We decided that we were against slavery quite some time ago,” he says. “The theory that judges have to work on as judges is ridiculous. If you don’t enjoy a job, or you don’t think you’re doing it very well, you just leave.
But why did he resign? The common theory is that he was bored. This is mainly because one national newspaper chose to wrongly quote him as being bored in a headline.
It is the Laddie that became unpopular with many IP lawyers who felt harshly judged in his court. However, on paper the rant seems worse than it is. Laddie is very measured, gentle even. And his rants are driven by a passionate belief that a legal system should treat clients fairly.
His name was just about to be put forward to a number of international law firms when he spoke to Willoughbys founding partner Tony Willoughby, a friend of 35 years’ standing.
f there’s any honour – and there is an honour in being made a judge – it’s the honour of being made a judge. No other mark is necessary. If they wanted to take the title away, it wouldn’t worry me at all,” says Laddie, outspoken to the end.
And so he begins his new life. No longer Mr Justice Laddie. Just Hugh Laddie, consultant, Rouse & Co.
ARTICLE EXTRACTS END
How likely is it that Laddie did not discuss the Shell case with his good friend Tony Willoughby, who had Shell as a client?
ENDS
In May and June 2004 we undertook several initiatives.
On 20 May 2004, we wrote a letter to Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor outlining events and requesting an investigation. We were informed in a reply that his department could not comment on individual judicial cases and suggested we should seek legal advice. We published the correspondence and a related sworn affidavit on the Internet.
On 26/27 June we sent emails to every UK MP on the subject of “HAKLUYT – THE COMMERCIAL ARM OF MI6.”
We provided a link to our letter to Lord Falconer complaining about the conduct of Mr Justice Laddie.
The judge was not interested in the Shell sponsored cloak and dagger activity. Some Members of Parliament were.
We received many responses including one from the Intelligence & Security Committee on behalf of Rt. Hon Ann Taylor MP advising: “the contents of your email have been noted and will be drawn to the attention of the other Committee members.”
We were also in correspondence with the then PM Tony Blair MP via 10 Downing Street.
On 2 June 2004, we faxed a letter to Christopher James, a former SAS/MI6 officer and co-founder of the corporate espionage company Hakluyt & Company asking if Hakluyt had been involved in Shell’s spying activities against us.
Bizarrely, we received a response from a lawyer at The Church of England, Mr Mike Webster, who discovered our letter on a fax machine in their legal department.
This is the astonishing email correspondence on 6 July 2004, which contains a reference to a related telephone conversation between Mr Webster and me. He thought our letter had been faxed to the Church of England in error.
It turned out that the then *head lawyer at The Church of England, *Sir Anthony Hammond KCB QC was a director, shareholder and legal counsel at Hakluyt. He had been asked to draft a reply to our letter. The matter was obviously deemed of sufficient importance to require his lawyer skills. Why would that be the case if Hakluyt had no involvement?
We naturally brought this astonishing development to the attention of the head of the Church of England, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. See our letter dated 7 June 2004.
We supplied copies of related correspondence including the letter to the then Lord Chancellor complaining about Mr Justice Laddie. Buckingham Palace replied on behalf of Her Majesty stating that we were “quite correct to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to Lord Falconer.”
We received an acknowledgement letter on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury on 22 June 2004.
*Sir Anthony Hammond was Standing Counsel to the General Synod of the Church of England. By coincidence or otherwise, after his association with Hakluyt was prominently exposed, Sir Anthony ceased being the legal counsel of Hakluyt & Company.
On 13 January 2005, we circulated a further email to MP’s, once again raising the subject of Mr Justice Laddie and his conduct.
Our emails to MP’s, correspondence with the Intelligence & Security Committee, Church of England, Buckingham Palace, Canterbury Palace, and 10 Downing Street, were all published on the Internet.
Thus, Mr Justice Laddie was well aware of our views and was placed in a very difficult position, with his credibility and reputation being publicly called into question and at the highest levels of the state. The various correspondence on the subject ended on 21 April 2005.
By coincidence or otherwise, just eight weeks later, Mr Justice Laddie resigned as a Judge in mysterious controversial circumstances (June 2005).
(Within weeks of his resignation, Shell used his Judges Comments in WIPO proceedings Shell brought against my father. The reference was made in an attempt to denigrate us – a further violation of the so-called peace treaty if it had still been in force. Shell lost the WIPO case.)
Doubts were raised about the reason the judge gave for his resignation (boredom), which caused a sensation in legal circles. See the obituary published 3 December 2008 by the Telegraph.
John Walsh, a writer for The Independent newspaper asked, “What is one to make of the behaviour of Sir Hugh Laddie, better known as Mr Justice Laddie…”
Mr Justice Laddie was the first High Court Judge to resign for 35 years. He certainly seemed to have something on his mind.
Tragically he passed away in 2008 as a result of cancer. It was clear from tributes made at the time that he was a much liked and widely respected Judge.
As for Tony Blair, his apparent intervention came to nought. Unbeknown to me, at the time we were in contact with his office, Blair was lobbying Libyan dictator Gaddafi on behalf of Shell.
The oil giant even drafted a letter for Blair to send to Gaddafi.
Extract from the relevant Daily Mail article:
Lobbying: Shell is said to have dictated what Tony Blair said to Colonel Gaddafi in order to seal a £325million deal with Libya.
Extract from a related article in The Times by David Robertson published 27 April 2010:
While it is common for government ministers to champion British interests abroad, Shell’s draft reveals an unusual assurance in its ability to dictate Mr Blair’s conversation with the Libyan leader. It also raises questions about the motives behind Britain’s improved relations with Libya and the subsequent release of Abdul Baset Ali Al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Lockerbie victims have claimed that the Government paved the way for al-Megrahi’s release as part of a deal with Libya to give British companies access to Libya’s lucrative oil and gas industry.
Tony Blair, titled Shell directors, High Court Judges and the like are all fully paid-up members of the UK establishment. An elite club of which we have never been members.
My guess, from his condemnation of our unconventional campaigning tactics, is that Mr Justice Laddie regarded us as upstart outsiders who did not play by the unwritten rules of the old boy network.
If that was his view, it was correct.
My solicitor, Richard Woodman, did warn me at an early stage in the litigation that a Judge might frown on our campaigning as showing a lack of decorum. His warning proved well-founded.
I was not, however, prepared to sit back and leave it all to the lawyers bearing in mind the mounting horrendous costs involved.
That would have suited Shell, who would have dragged out proceedings even longer than they did.
I provided encouragement for the litigation to proceed without the delay which would have otherwise put Shell at a further advantage.
An article published by The Observer on 18 August 2018, provides an example of a Judge stepping aside to avoid any perceived conflict of interest, as Professor Laddie should have done.
Summary
I incurred the wrath of the judge for doing what I was legally entitled to do.
The degree of his displeasure did not become clear until the end of the trial when he erupted.
I have no doubt that he was a decent man of high integrity with immense knowledge and expertise, fully deserving of the tributes by family, friends and colleagues.
Having acknowledged all of that, if I had known that the trial would be held by a judge with a bias against entirely legal campaigning activity and disturbing undisclosed Shell connections, I would not have bet my house on a fair trial.
There is not just the consideration of outright bias, but unconscious bias.
Extract covering some of the same events from a related article… Donovan Libel Actions Against Shell
SMOKE & MIRRORS SETTLEMENT IN JULY 1999
The John Donovan libel action against Shell was withdrawn as part of a settlement of the SMART litigation contained in a deed of compromise dated 5 July 1999. Annexes 1, 2 and 3 includes a so-called joint press statement that was actually issued by Shell. The Deed of Compromise dealt with the abandonment of all claims. There was no mention of any payment being made by Shell.
Substantial settlement payments were however set out and sent to the solicitors acting for me as provided in a separate DEED of the same date, 5 July 1999.
The DEED contained this provision.
“The parties undertake to keep this Deed and the contents (including the fact of a payment being made) confidential to the parties and their professional advisors save that disclosure may take place under compulsion of law.”
Shell withheld the DEED in its entirety from the Judge Mr Justice Laddie. He had been deliberately completely misled about the outcome of the trial.
Therefore, when he made his Judges Comments in open court the following day, he was unaware that Shell had settled the case, paying ALL legal costs nor did he know that I would receive payment.
Fortunately, during the exchanges between the judge and my lawyer Geoffrey Cox captured in the Judges Comments, the precise documents handed over to the judge were mentioned.
AS a result, a false impression was conveyed by Shell when it withheld the key settlement document from the Judge.
It appeared that I had surrendered.
I have a communication from a senior Shell lawyer confirming that the relevant settlement document was withheld from the Judge.
This false impression was reinforced by a press statement released by Shell deliberately misleading the news media, the public and Shell shareholders. I agreed to the content of the press statement under duress from the bombardment of threats and sinister events.
The closing days of the trial were marked by an outright deception allowed by the Judge and ended in his heated exchange with my lead counsel Mr Geoffrey Cox. The Judge admitted that he had lost control of the trial.
Geoffrey Cox QC MP later became the UK Attorney General famous for his Brexit related declaration in the House of Commons that “This is a dead parliament.”
By coincidence or otherwise, soon after we wrote to every UK MP in January 2005 raising questions about the independence and impartiality of the Judge, he resigned (in June 2005) in controversial circumstances.
Extract from a Telegraph article headlined:
‘Bored High Court judge resigns:
Mr Justice Laddie, 59, is thought to be the first judge to resign voluntarily from the High Court for 35 years and is the first to join a solicitors’ firm.
The solicitors firm was founded by a lifetime friend. Shell was a client.
He was a distinguished speaker in an informa law “In-house Counsel 2006” conference chaired by Shell’s legal director, Richard Wiseman, who had attended court on a daily basis.