Litigation specialists from fs legal (now with fs litigation) successfully applied evidential principles to secure million-pound win against multinational medivet.

FSL (instructing Paul Chaisty KC and Andrew Latimer of Kings Chambers) has successfully represented John Levison in a million-pound claim against multinational company, Medivet.

Mr Levison entered a partnership with Medivet for the sale of Swanbridge Veterinary Group to Medivet. The parties agreed that if Mr Levison remained working at Medivet until 31 May 2022, Medivet would pay John £1 million of the remaining monies (the Earnout).

Medivet refused to pay Mr Levison the earnout, despite John working the necessary hours. The conglomerate claimed that Mr Levison had agreed to leave employment earlier than 31st May 2022, a suggestion which, if accepted by the court, would have caused the loss of £1 million.

The case was critical in illustrating the need for a holistic assessment of the evidence. The judge accepted the submission made by Paul Chaisty KC that the well-known observation of Leggatt J (as he then was) in Gestmin SGPS v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd [2013] EWHC 3560 was not a rule of law or binding precedent. Instead, all the strands of evidence that each party had adduced had to be considered in the round.

FSL, Paul Chaisty KC and Andrew Latimer demonstrated that Gestmin reminds us that while an assessment of documentary evidence is important when understanding events over two years old, that analysis should never be limited solely to documentary evidence, particularly where there are concerns about inconsistencies amongst the documentary evidence.

As the decision in Jaffe v Greybull Capital LLP [2024] EWHC 2534 (Comm) has shown, the importance of personal recall can be preferential to documentary evidence where appropriate, and even where memory of events might be described as vestigial. In the Jaffe case, the witnesses could still credibly recall events of some eight years ago. In Mr Levison’s case, the risk of memory fading over time was even less, with the critical events taking place less than three years ago.

In this instance, Mr Levison and his witnesses vividly remembered the discussions and agreements that occurred in a meeting due to the peculiarity of certain events. These events included the configuration of the room in which a critical meeting took place, the parties’ physical location (“sitting on the floor”) and the actions of going through a list of dates, ticking off days when Mr Levison had worked. This illustrates the importance of different types of memory, here demonstrating how spatial and visual aspects of events can make them more memorable.

This case was acutely fact-sensitive. The success is testimony to the meticulous preparation of the legal team leading up to and including trial and highlights FSL’s expertise in seeing cases through from start to finish against significantly resourced opponents with resounding success.

Kit Sorrell, Partner at FS Litigation, said: When we presented the case it was essential that we were able to highlight the need for a holistic approach to evidence. It is so important to take into account all evidence, including witness statements and documents. We were pleased to be able to take this approach and help John, who has been a stalwart of his community, get the result that he deserved.”