52.
The picture changes towards the end of the year. On the 16 th November 2005 two text
messages were sent by First Defendant to the Claimant on his mobile phone that are
referred to in the pleadings and on which considerable reliance has been placed by
Mr. Crystal for the Claimant at the trial. No record now exists of them but following
inspection of a copy of the mobile phone records the First Defendant accepts that the
following is an accurate statement of what he sent.
53.
The first text sent at 8.24am reads:
“Fax me your bank details I will send you the money as I am very busy. The int is 4.”
At 10.01am the second text reads “interest a year”
54.
The Claimant submits that this is a clear reference to the First Defendant agreeing to
pay back the loans of the previous December and that in the light of the delay in
repayment the First Defendant had agreed to pay interest on the loan at 4% per
annum.
55.
By contrast the First Defendant states that the text refers to his willingness to
endeavour to supply the Claimant with a loan through Mr. Fisher at 4% interest
pursuant to the side agreement to the December donation. The matter did not
progress because no bank details or further activity by the Claimant in respect of the
loan were supplied. The Defendants submit that the mention of interest in the text
could not be a reference to interest on the December transaction because, as observant
Jews, such interest was prohibited unless approved in advance by a rabbi and reflected
in a document “hettar iskar” that the parties were content to have translated as
“approved transaction”.
56.
In December 2005 the Claimant approached the rabbinical court in the USA, the Beis
Din Zedek (BDZ) in Brooklyn. Observant Jews feel an obligation to attempt first to
resolve differences inside their community by reference to arbitration by the religious
authority that binds them in matters of faith. There is no difficulty in the civil courts
permitting and indeed encouraging the parties to resolve their differences by
alternative dispute resolution, before embarking on litigation in the civil courts.
Alternative proceedings will have to be agreed on and pursued speedily, if they are
not to detract from the over-riding objective of the civil procedure rules. Where there
has been no agreement as to the location and form of alternative dispute resolution,
parties must, however, be free to litigate in the civilian courts without fear of
extraneous sanction.
57.
No question of privilege arises in respect of the documents relating to the rabbinical
proceedings. Their relevance to the civil proceedings is that they represented the first
occasion where there is a documentary record of how the Claimant put his claim and
the response of the First Defendant to it.
58.
The Claimant states he was asked by the First Defendant to institute proceedings in
the USA . This is disputed by First Defendant who says that the proceedings should
have been taken in the rabbinical court in the United Kingdom. It may be that in any
event the First Defendant's US nationality made the institution of proceedings in the
United States appropriate.