Background
In November 2025, the High Court ordered Edelweiss Investments Inc to provide Loudmila and Veronica Bourlakova with documents and information relating to a Russian arbitration brought by Mr Ploshchenko. The order was intended to help protect Edelweiss’s assets from a claim that both sides characterized as bogus. It restricted the use of the disclosed material and included a cross-undertaking in damages from the Bourlakovas.
The arbitral tribunal subsequently dismissed Mr Ploshchenko’s claim but reduced Edelweiss’s recoverable costs by $100,000 because documents had been disclosed in breach of arbitral confidentiality. Mr Ploshchenko then challenged the award. Meanwhile, Mr Sergei Korovin commenced a separate $272.4 million arbitration against Hermitage One Limited involving an allegedly similar agreement. The parties returned to the High Court with applications concerning disclosure of the first arbitration’s hearing recording, deletion and collateral use of documents, enforcement of the cross-undertaking, and publication of the earlier judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that the original disclosure order imposed two separate obligations: Edelweiss had to request permission to record the arbitral hearing and, if a recording existed, provide it to the Bourlakovas. The tribunal’s refusal to permit disclosure did not qualify the second obligation. Because Mr Ploshchenko’s challenge remained ongoing, the threat to Edelweiss’s assets had not ended, so Edelweiss remained required to provide the recording. The court declined to strike out Edelweiss’s applications and adjourned its document-deletion request generally, with liberty to restore it.
The court permitted Hermitage One to use specified materials from the first arbitration in the Korovin arbitration because the claims had substantial factual similarities and Mr Korovin had testified in the first proceeding. Permission covered merits submissions, documentary evidence, witness statements and exhibits, and the merits award, but not costs materials, procedural documents, legal authorities, expert evidence, or the hearing recording. Hermitage One was required to provide quarterly progress updates and notice of the arbitration’s conclusion.
The court declined to enforce the cross-undertaking at this stage, holding that the decision should await the conclusion of the main proceedings; compliance expenses were litigation costs, not loss under the undertaking. It also ordered publication of the November 2025 judgment in unredacted form, with a neutral postscript recording that the arbitral claim had been dismissed and identifying the related judgments.
Key Takeaways
- A court order is construed objectively from its language, context, and purpose; the tribunal’s refusal to approve disclosure did not alter Edelweiss’s independent court-ordered duty to provide the recording.
- Confidential arbitration materials may be authorized for use in another proceeding where cogent reasons exist, but permission can be confined to documents directly relevant to the factual overlap.
- Enforcement of a disclosure-related cross-undertaking may be deferred when the disclosure order remains connected to an undertaking whose necessity will be determined in the underlying litigation.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how English courts balance arbitral confidentiality against asset protection, open justice, and the fair resolution of related disputes. A foreign tribunal’s confidentiality ruling does not itself rewrite or displace an English disclosure order.
It also demonstrates that collateral-use permission is document-specific and proportionate: compelling similarities between arbitrations justified broader access than Edelweiss proposed, but not unrestricted use of the entire arbitral record.