Background
In April 2012, Amir Abbas Moaven, gravely ill and contemplating death, executed Declarations of Trust purporting to confirm that four properties he owned were held on informal trust arrangements with his brother, Amir Ahmed Moaven, an accountant Behzad Faiz, and their mother. Abbas died shortly thereafter. His widow, Gabriela Mozerle Teixeira, challenged the declarations. The trial court in May 2026 determined the declarations were sham documents created deliberately to conceal the true extent of Abbas’s estate from his widow and HMRC.
This judgment addresses costs liability. The three defendants who created, facilitated, or defended these false documents—Amir Ahmed Moaven (Abbas’s brother), Marios Robert Pittalis (the family conveyancing solicitor), and Behzad Faiz (the family accountant)—now face costs claims. Master Bowles had to determine whether they should pay costs on the standard or indemnity basis and whether their liability should be joint and several.
The Court’s Holding
Master Bowles ordered all three defendants to pay Gabriela’s costs, her children’s costs, and the independent administrators’ costs on an indemnity basis, with liability joint and several. This is the most severe costs order available.
The judge found that each defendant’s conduct was manifestly outside the norm of acceptable litigation. Critically, all three knew the declarations were false. Pittalis’s own attendance notes from April 2012 showed that discussions centred on which versions of the declarations could “be sustained, if challenged, before a court”—meaning they deliberately crafted documents they hoped would deceive a judge if exposed to judicial scrutiny. Pittalis prepared multiple conflicting declarations knowing their recitals could not all be true; the group selected the version most advantageous to Abbas’s estate-hiding goal. Faiz and Pittalis, as executors of Abbas’s estate, had a personal financial interest in the declarations being upheld (their liability to the estate would be reduced by two-thirds if the false pooling arrangement were real).
Although Faiz took a passive stance at trial, passivity was no defence. The judge found that knowingly standing by while a false case is advanced—especially when a party is the source of the misconduct—falls outside acceptable litigation conduct. Pittalis actively defended the declarations’ validity until cross-examination during trial forced capitulation, all while his own attendance notes (disclosed during the proceedings) proved his complicity. Both men could have told the truth at any stage and eliminated the need for trial; they chose not to.
Key Takeaways
- Courts will award indemnity costs where a party’s conduct is designed to mislead the court itself, not merely to gain tactical advantage in litigation. The aim of creating and sustaining sham documents for court proceedings elevates misconduct from typical litigation dishonesty to conduct warranting the harshest cost sanction.
- Professionals (solicitors, accountants) who facilitate fraud cannot escape costs liability by claiming they were merely “functional” operators with no interest in truth. Professional obligations of probity and integrity are non-delegable; knowingly preparing false documents violates those duties and exposes professionals to joint and several indemnity costs.
- Passive participation—knowingly remaining silent while false claims are advanced—can constitute sufficient misconduct to trigger indemnity costs when the silent party is aware of the truth and connected to the misconduct’s source.
- Joint and several liability applies where multiple parties jointly conspire in litigation misconduct, even if their roles differ (active advocate vs. passive accomplice).
Why It Matters
This decision signals serious judicial intolerance for estate planning fraud and underscores that professionals facilitating such schemes face not just liability exposure but professional reputation and ethics consequences. The judgment expressly criticises the “extraordinary” professional conduct of Pittalis and Faiz—their apparent indifference to the falsity of the documents and their treatment of probity as irrelevant to their professional role—suggesting potential referral to professional disciplinary bodies.
The indemnity costs regime is reserved for conduct falling outside the norm. By awarding indemnity costs here, Master Bowles has made clear that deliberately creating documents *designed for court-room deployment* to mislead a judge crosses that threshold. The decision will influence costs outcomes in future cases involving fraud, dishonest estate planning, and professional complicity, particularly where the false narrative is tailored to withstand judicial scrutiny.
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