Cavendish IP Solutions Limited v On And On Consultants Limited & Anor

Facts

The claimant, Cavendish IP Solutions Ltd, a litigation funder, took an assignment from the liquidator of One Property Group (UK) Limited of all the company's claims against the defendants. The company had gone into creditors' voluntary liquidation on 18 November 2015. Its registered sole director and shareholder was Mr Darren Bradbury, but it was in reality owned by an offshore entrepreneur, Mr Richard Goddard, and, the claimant alleged, run by the second defendant, Mr Neil Macpherson, who was never a de jure director of either the company or the first defendant, On and On Consultants Limited, a company registered in the name of his wife. On 17 November 2021 an insolvency application was issued seeking declarations that payments to On and On, and to persons associated with Mr Macpherson, were transactions at an undervalue or preferences in favour of a connected person under the Insolvency Act 1986. A Part 7 claim against Mr Macpherson alone, for breach of statutory duties and constructive trusteeship, followed on 12 June 2023, and the two were consolidated by order made on 16 June 2023 without prejudice to limitation. Following an unless order made on 14 January 2026, ICC Judge Mullen struck out the defences and debarred the defendants from defending on 16 March 2026 for serious disclosure failures, and the matter came on for trial with only the claimant's oral evidence.