SD for Dubai Credit Card debt

[living]

Hi, I too have had communication sent to me from CWD, via an old address that i used to live at some years ago. The letter states that I owe FGB £15k! I had a credit card in the UAE for £1,500 some years ago, plus a car loan and when I had to leave suddenly, I left the car at the bank, thinking that the fact that I owed less than the car was worth would solve matters, as they could sell it and recoup their money.

 

CWD say they're going to make a claim against me in Northampton County Court (Form N1) at Aylesbury.

 

The letter was posted to my old address. I was visiting friend in the area and called in to see the house and they passed me this letter. Needless to say, I wish I'd not popped round...

 

So, should I ignore? Contact the company CWD? Call the court and ask if these documents are real?

 

How can this company, who I have never heard from before, try to make a judgement against me in a court, for an amount I dispute I even owe in Dubai, never mind here! Please help and advise and let's stick together to see what happens in all cases.

[rebel11]

Hi living

 

Welcome to CAG

 

The guys will advise as soon as they are available.

Your thread has been moved to create your own thread.

[steampowered]

Refer to http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/pd_pre-action_conduct#A.

 

The first thing I think you should do is ask for a copy of the documents underlying the debt and full details of how it has been calculated. You need to try and get a copy of the credit card T&Cs to see what the jurisdiction clause says about whether they can start proceedings over here.

[living]

Hi again,

Thank you for posting back so promptly - that's amazing.

I have a copy of documents sent with the 'court papers' which is a credit card agreement and a long list of clauses which states that. I have looked through to check for a 'jurisdiction clause' that you mentioned and cant find anything except this:

'Clause 17: These terms and conditions are governed by and shall be construed in accordance with the laws of the UAE and the card holder hereby submits irrevocably to the laws of the non-executive jurisdiction of the civil courts of Dubai.'

 

Again in another clause, it says:

In December 2013, in accordance with the clause set out at paragraph 4.33 above, responsibility for recovering the defendant's liability was given to CWD, a firm of solicitors practising within the jurisdiction of this court. on 16th December 2013, CWD made written demand for payment upon the defendant, but the defendant has failed to meet this demand.'

 

Later they say that they will rely on in court the 'expert evidence' of Mr Tariq Al Shams, a lawyer employed by Baker & McKenzie Habib Al Mulla to support this claim under the appropriate laws in the UAE.

 

The papers were sent to my old address on 17th March via 2nd class post, are stamped with DATE OF SERVICE: 20th March 2014 and the enclosed court papers say I have 14 days to respond.

 

Strangely, the postal mark on the documents comes from Salford and says it came from CCMC PO BOX 527, SALFORD M5 0BY I'm going to now find out who CCMC are...

 

I'm assuming they cant start proceedings over here then, but I am still a little concerned. I hope to buy a house at some point in the not too distant future, if I can manage to ever save up enough to get a deposit. I dont want this damaging my credit rating.

 

Will a UK court take this seriously - thats assuming its even legit papers I have here. Thanks for helping and hopefully someone can advise me how to proceed - I cant afford a fancy solicitor. THANKS!

[living]

I too would also like updates.

I'm dealing with the same company.

I have tried to PM all of you in this thread to find out more about our cases.

It would perhaps help us all if we shared information.

 

Has anyone further information about whether they have actually been taken to court, or is this just idle threats?

 

I am disgusted with this tactic and dispute the claim entirely

- I didnt even take out the original credit card with FGB!!! (ex partner did)

[renegadeimp]

No need to PM anyone. Just read around the various threads and add your comments to it.

[steampowered]

CCMC is County Court Money Claims which is a centralised claims processing centre based in Salford. If you go ahead and file a Defence the case should then be allocated to your nearest county court.

 

You need to understand the difference between governing law (which concerns how the credit card agreement is interpreted) and jurisdiction (which concerns the court which can hear the case). Whatever happens this agreement will be governed by UAE law. There is no real reason in principle why a UAE law governed agreement cannot be litigated in the English courts. In cases like this any issues of UAE law can be dealt with by expert evidence. The judge can hear from an expert in UAE law to find out what UAE law says about UAE law issues.

 

Your agreement has a non-exclusive jurisdiction clause. This means the claim can definitely be brought in the Dubai courts but can possibly be brought in other courts. Under the EU rules on jurisdiction, my understanding is that if you are living in England the English courts must take the case. There are a few exceptions set out in the regulation on this but I don't think any of them would apply here. For this reason it would be difficult for you to contest jurisdiction.

 

You need to understand that as the claim is for more than 10k, it won't be treated as a small claim and you will be liable for their legal costs for hearings you lose (and if properly claimed they will be liable to you for £18 an hour spent on the case if you win). If you contest jurisdiction there will be a separate hearing on jurisdiction and if you lose you will probably have to pay their costs for that hearing. For this reason my personal view is that you shouldn't contest jurisdiction. If you disagree with me and you do want to contest jurisdiction, you must indicate this on the acknowledgement of service and then file a witness statement explaining the reasons.

 

You must respond to this within the court deadlines. If you don't there will be a default judgment granted against you which would mean a CCJ for the full amount claimed.

 

I think you need to concentrate on challenging the amount. You should be writing to them asking them for a full explanation of how the amount has been calculated and all documentation supporting this (including statements etc.). You should make a CPR 31.14 request for disclosure of all documents mentioned in their Particulars of Claim (there is a sticky somewhere about how to do this). You will then be in a better position to challenge them. I think you should be careful about admitting things: before going into details about the car and so on, let them prove what money is owed. For now you are probably best off filing an acknowledgement of service before the 14 days are up and then filing a Defence before the next 14 days are up.

 

Baker & McK are a corporate law firm who do things like international mergers & acquisitions. Their litigation department generally won't be involved for disputes which aren't worth at a bare minimum several hundred grand. Its extremely unlikely they will be at all involved in your case which is worth only 15k. I imagine that the bank is a client and that B&M has agreed to provide a very general legal opinion which says something like "We are not aware of any reason why a credit card debt under these T&Cs would be unenforceable under UAE law". I doubt it has anything specific about your case. Again you should be asking to see a copy of this.

[living]

Thank you for your reply,

 

Firstly, I have not been served with these papers yet, as they were sent to my old address by second class post.

 

How can they take this to court in the UK, despite the fact that they have not served me with these papers? I am not aware of any court case having been undertaken in the UAE, I dispute the debt and have no paperwork with which to defend these claims?

 

You seem to be stating that a UK court has jurisdiction over a Dubai debt and can force me to pay it - even though I dont owe it!

 

"Your agreement has a non-exclusive jurisdiction clause. This means the claim can definitely be brought in the Dubai courts but can possibly be brought in other courts. Under the EU rules on jurisdiction, my understanding is that if you are living in England the English courts must take the case. There are a few exceptions set out in the regulation on this but I don't think any of them would apply here. For this reason it would be difficult for you to contest jurisdiction."

How can the court be confident that the case is / was correctly brought in a foreign court? If it has been to court in the UAE, how could I have even gone there to represent myself under threat of jail time?

 

 

The card wasnt even solely in my name, but was run-up by my ex who is now in France as far as I know! The car was mine, but I returned it before leaving and had all but paid it off.

 

This all seems rather ridiculous...

[steampowered]

It is permitted to serve papers on the last known address. The rules on this are available here: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part06. Its probably best to inform the other side and the court of your new address to make sure you don't miss further court papers.

 

They don't need to undertake a court case in the UAE first I'm afraid. You can have a dispute which is decided under UAE law but litigated in the UK and decided by an English court. This would normally be done to simplify the process where the debtor is based in the UK. If there are any issues of UAE law arising because the contract is governed by UAE law, a UAE law expert can be brought in to explain the issue to the judge. If there is some very complicated UAE law issue it may be difficult for the English court to decide on that, but it is unlikely there will be any such issues in your case.

 

I am not saying the UK court can force you to pay a debt you don't owe. You will have a chance to dispute the amount of the debt through the legal system. You would need to file a Defence explaining briefly why you dispute the debt. Once the case has been allocated to your local court there will then be a disclosure stage where they have to reveal the documents they intend to rely on in court. There will then be a hearing where the judge will examine the evidence. In the meantime you can make a CPR 31.14 request for the documents mentioned in their Particulars of Claim and should write to them asking for further information.