MTF Funding Ltd & Anor v Synergy Agroscience Ltd & Ors

The First (“MTFF”) and Second (“MTFR”) Claimants are companies established to provide specialist trade finance, They sue to recover what they say are the balances due to them, amounting in aggregate to some £428,000 (excluding interest), pursuant to facilities provided initially by MTFF and later by MTFR, to the First Defendant (“Synergy”). Their claims against the Second (“Mr Gooch”) and Third (“DAV”) Defendants are pursuant to guarantees given by them for the liabilities of Synergy, which were limited to £250,000 and £50,000 respectively.

The Defence denies any liability of Synergy to the claimants, claims rescission of the agreements between the defendants and the claimants on the basis of what are said to have been fraudulent misrepresentations inducing them to enter into those agreements and seeks an account as to what sums are due between themselves and the claimants, and to set off against any sums found due by them for damages for losses incurred by reason of reliance on those misrepresentations.

MTFF is in liquidation. MTFR pursues the claim on its behalf, with the authority of its liquidators. No objection has been taken to its ability to do so.

The claim was issued in November 2018. The defendants act in person, though have throughout the litigation had the assistance of Mr Simon Loome, a qualified solicitor originally in private practice but more recently employed by Synergy (or another company controlled by Mr Gooch). Mr Loome drafted the Defence and Counterclaim filed in January 2019. At some point subsequent to that, the defendants instructed Mr Bacon as Direct Access Counsel, and he has represented them at hearings since then.

After Mr Tinkler’s death his widow provided to the claimants’ solicitors some hundreds of pages of invoices and other documentation relating to the accounts with Synergy that she had found at his house which, it was accepted, ought to have been disclosed in these proceedings.