CYK successfully defeats series of heavy applications in €100m Polish real estate fraud claim

Durnont Enterprises Ltd v Fazita Investment Ltd & Ors [2026] EWHC 405 (Ch)

Following a heavy five-day hearing in November 2025 considering complex factual issues and foreign law, Rajah J found overwhelmingly in favour of CYK’s client, Durnont Enterprises Ltd (“Durnont”), rejecting the Defendants’ various applications to challenge jurisdiction, strike out the proceedings, for reverse summary judgment, and to set aside permission to bring a derivative claim.

Durnont’s claims concern a substantial and complex alleged fraud involving the unlawful extraction of approximately €100 million in value from a Polish commercial real estate investment structure, including through a 2016 default judgment which Durnont seeks to set aside. Rajah J found that there was a serious issue to be tried in respect of all causes of actions advanced by Durnont under English law, Cypriot law, and Polish law, that there was a good arguable case that each of the claims fell within one of the gateways in CPR PD6B paragraph 3.1, and England was clearly the more appropriate forum to hear the dispute. The judgment represents a complete and resounding victory for CYK’s client.

The core CYK team comprised Jon Felce, Joseph Martin, and Leonore Carron-Desrosiers, alongside the Counsel team of Philip Riches KC, Andrew Dinsmore, and James Lamming of Twenty Essex.

Read the judgment here.