#5161 - Lewis V. Eliades - Conflict of Laws BCL

Lewis v. Eliades

Facts

The claimant, who is the undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion and a resident of the United Kingdom was the defendant in the New York proceedings, having been sued by the defendants following the breakdown of their relationship with the claimant as his managers and promoters. Damages in the sum of $7,273,641 were awarded to the claimant on his counterclaim for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and racketeering contrary to the RICO Act.

RICO Act:

“Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue therefore in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee …”: see section 1964(c) of Title 18, Chapter 96 of the US Code.”

Basic Order: Their findings in favour of the claimant were that each of the defendants was liable for (i) $6,821,159 as damages for breach of fiduciary duty, (ii) $56,400 as damages for fraud, (iii) $396,082 as damages for violation of the RICO Act. No punitive damages were awarded. The sum in respect of the RICO Act violations constituted the basic compensatory award under that Act, with no “threefold” multiplication applied. On 15 March 2002 the trial judge issued his judgment awarding “Lennox Lewis judgment in the amount of $7,273,641 as against Panix Promotions Ltd, Panix of the US Inc and Panos Eliades”. That was the aggregate of the sums in (i) to (iii) above and contained no multiple element.

Application for treble Damages: On 25 March 2002 the claimant filed a motion in the New York court requesting the trebling of the $396,082 figure for RICO Act damages so as to increase it to $1,188,246 and for consequential amendment of the overall verdict to $8,065,805.

Motion for separate judgments withdrawn: On 4 March 2003 Mr Burstein wrote to Judge Baer informing him of the withdrawal of the claimant's motions to amend the judgment of 15 March 2002 and confirming that the claimant no longer requested any increase in the principal amount of the judgment. On the same day he received confirmation over the telephone from the clerk to Judge Baer that the withdrawal of the motions was accepted.

However, on 16 July 2003 the clerk of the district court, in apparent ignorance of that withdrawal and acceptance, issued an order citing the claimant's earlier motions (para 8 above) to amend the 15 March judgment so as to treble the $396,082 basic award under the RICO Act and the claimant's further motion (para 11 above) to have a separate judgment for the amount of the increase under the RICO Act provisions in the amount of $792,164, and ordering entry of a separate judgment in that amount, nunc pro tunc, as of the date of the original judgment for $7,273,641.

That last mentioned sum represented the amount of the judgment of 15 March 2002 augmented by the trebled RICO Act damages, plus $40 in respect of an original miscalculation for the total damages under the other heads of claim.

Question

The position with which this court is now concerned is one in which the judgment sought to be enforced by the claimant is a judgment in the single sum of $8,065,805 which includes a clearly identifiable award of treble damages under the RICO Act of $1,188,246. The issue is whether, as the defendants submit, the entire judgment for $8,065,805 is unenforceable by reason of section 5 of the 1980 Act or whether, as the claimant submits, it is enforceable save as to $1,188,246 (“the RICO element”).

The question is whether the fact that the RICO element of the judgment comes within that definition renders the entire judgment for $8,065,805 “a judgment for multiple damages” for the purposes of section 5 or whether the RICO element only is to be so regarded and thus unenforceable

Holding

So far as the non-RICO elements of the judgment are concerned, the US court documents in this case make clear that the judgment sought to be enforced consists of sums in respect of ordinary compensatory damages for private causes of action similar to those available under English law. In my view it is both desirable and appropriate that enforcement of those elements should be open to the claimant unless plainly precluded by the terms of the 1980 Act, and the approach to the construction...