bank to carry out development work. The work began in early 2005 and on its
completion in June 2006 the property was transferred back to the Craven Walk
trustees. The Defendants say that all this was a charitable purpose within the powers
of the YLJT Trustees to promote and that although there were some issues as to
whether that charity’s accounts had correctly recorded these events, the charity itself
suffered no loss as the cost of the loan it raised for others was repaid by Craven Walk
Trust. This particular transaction has relevance to the core events in dispute as the
Claimant says he was solicited by the First Defendant to make a payment in
December 2004 in order to repay a bank loan and overdraft related to this
expenditure. The Claimant further alleges that the YLJT improperly divested itself of
this asset in breach of the freezing order granted by the rabbinical court.
17.
YLJT maintained bank accounts in the UK in sterling and dollars. In Israel the Israel
charity maintained bank accounts in US dollars, UK sterling and Israeli shekels. The
undisputed evidence suggested that US dollars was at the material time considered a
more stable currency than Israeli shekels, and that a better rate of exchange from
sterling into US dollars could be obtained by the transfer mechanisms the charity had
established in the UK.
18.
At the hearing of this action the court heard from the Claimant, his assistant Mr.
Hochauser, the translator Mr. Greenblatt, and the Trust’s business agent in Israel Mr.
Fisher. I received a late statement of Rabbi Wosner and admitted it under the Civil
Evidence Act 1968 as he was reluctant to appear before a civil court. There was a
substantial conflict of evidence between the Claimant and the First Defendant about
the nature of the transactions, the meaning of the agreement and the subsequent
history. In this judgment references to the UK charity or the Trust are references to
the YLJT.
The earlier transaction
19.
In the course of pre-trial disclosure the Defendants provided pages from their loans
and donations register. The YLJT Quick Report Accounts for donations for the
period from 1st September to 1st March 2005 revealed that on the 4 th October 2004,
the sum of £200,000 was transferred to YLJT by one David Wineman.
20.
Mr. Weiss’s witness statement of the 2nd January 2008 explains the background (vol
1/316/22):
“The UK Charity was overdrawn. Some months earlier, an individual had given
the UK Charity a loan for £100,000 as the UK Charity was in desperate need of
funds to send to the Israel Charity”.
This money was assigned by Mr. Weiss to the donations ledger of the charity with the
name of the donor recorded as “david weinman”. The underlying bank statement
showed that the money had come from David Wineman Client’s Account. Mr. Weiss
had slightly inaccurately transcribed the name to “Weinman”.
21.
David Wineman was a solicitor instructed by the Claimant in connection with his
property transactions and those of the businesses with which the Claimant was
associated. It should thus have been apparent to the Claimant from the disclosure
documents that the Defendants were effectively asserting that the Claimant had