WTG Defence, page-8

Grant - I see that Mr Justice Males is involved - will he be the presiding judge?

I held a lot of shares in a UK-based oil company called Mediterranean Oil & Gas (MOG) against which a claim was made in 2014 (effectively for deceit) by a former partner Leni Oil & Gas - now known as LGO, which was out of the stable of that nice David Lenigas, whom you lot exported to us as revenge for all the criminals we sent you back in the day. Thanks.

Anyway, I attended the hearing in London, which lasted a week or more. I also attended when judgement was given a few weeks later. Mr Justice Males was the presiding judge. I had always thought the claim was groundless but of course one never knows whether justice will be served, particularly since imo LGO's CEO was very liberal with the what most saw as the truth, when giving evidence. By the end of the hearing I was a lot less confident of the outcome than I had been at the start. A negative ruling would have been catastrophic for my investment.

There was no indication given during the hearing by Mr Justice Males as to which way he might be leaning, although what did come through strongly in his occasional incisive questions asked of those giving evidence at various stages, was that he was a highly experienced and extremely intelligent individual who was able to sift what was relevant and valid from what was not. I was one of a handful who attended when judgement was given, but the reasons for him finding in favour of MOG were made crystal clear and showed what an extremely clear-thinking and fair-minded individual Mr Justice Males was. Whilst he was entirely professional and even charming in the way he delivered his findings, it could not have been clearer that he regarded a certain witness's evidence as fiction. Had a single word been used to describe the individual concerned, it might have been a 4 letter word beginning with L and ending with R.

I'm probably wrong but there seem to me to be certain similarities.

http://www.cms-lawnow.com/ealerts/2014/04/oil-and-gas-genuine-negotiations-vs-deceitful-statements

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2014/893.html

"I do not doubt that Mr XXXX was seeking to give accurate and truthful evidence, but he had clearly persuaded himself of the correctness of the claimants' case and tended in some answers to argue their case accordingly. In some respects I found his account of the critical telephone conversation not only unconvincing but contrary to the plain meaning of his own contemporary note of it".

MOG got taken over by RKH (phew - the oil price crashed a few months later), the field turned out to be dry and I narrowly failed to recover my investment cost. It might have ended differently. Plus ca change.

One day, Rodney..........

dyor - they're only views, of which no-one should take any notice