Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
10,000 Frampton Emails located
Messages that had been ‘lost’ are found Multi-million pound case is adjourned
MORE than 10,000 emails potentially relevant to boxer Carl Frampton’s legal battle with Barry Mcguigan have just been discovered, the High Court heard yesterday.
A judge was previously told the messages were either lost or deleted from the Mcguigan family’s Cyclone Promotions account.
But on day 20 of the multi-million pound trial, it emerged archived emails were found on the company’s systems last week. Proceedings were adjourned as a “mammoth” trawl through the material continued. Mr Frampton, 33, is suing Mr Mcguigan and
Cyclone for alleged withheld earnings. In a counter action, the former two-weight world champion is facing a claim for breach of contract by quitting the organisation in August 2017. Both deny wrongdoing.
During his evidence last week, Mr Mcguigan’s promoter son was pressed about company emails relating to eight fights.
Blain Mcguigan said they were deleted to free space ahead of a switch in company accounts in 2017. He said the Cyclone team had been advised to get rid of old correspondence not relevant to future events.
The migration process was also said to have resulted in “irretrievable” emails. But on Friday it emerged batches have now been found with further checks carried out over the weekend.
The court was told today 2,600 email s were l o cat ed in Bl ain Mcguigan archives, around 1,000 in Barry Mcguigan’s, 5,000 in his wife Sandra’s and a potentially higher figure in the account of another son, Jake Mcguigan.
At one point Mr Justice Huddleson said: “Even on a preliminary discussion you are talking about 9,000 to 10,000 emails.”
Gavin Millar QC, for Mr Frampton, argued large numbers of digital documents of no real relevance should not be disclosed en masse at such a late stage, incurring extra
time and costs. He said: “The predicament we face is what appears to us to be document dumping.”
The lawyer added gaining access to emails had been an issue before the trial began, with a figure of 270 identified back in May last year.
Mr Millar said: “Large numbers of emails over the four-year period at issue relating to my client’s promotions and fights must have existed and/or must still exist.”
The development led to evidence being put on hold so lawyers can examine newly-discovered material.
Counsel for the Mcguigan family and Cyclone Promotions stressed his instructing solicitor carried out discovery obligations “diligently and professionally”. Liam Mccollum QC said: “This is not of his making at all, but I haven’t got to the bottom of the reasons why this has occurred so late because I have been concentrating on what has to be provided now and that’s a mammoth task.”
Responding to the suggestion that everything was “dumped” on the other side, Mr Mccollum insisted all documents were relevant to the case.
He added: “Part of my learned friend’s case is we are hiding material. Therefore we have to say you are entitled to see it all, to prove that we are not hiding anything.
“Anything that is relevant to a Mr Frampton fight or Mr Frampton’s sponsorship is included in the overall mass of emails that are all in the cloud.
“What we are trying to do is look to see which ones have been emerging in evidence during the trial and isolating those out.
“Some of them are banal, but they are banal ones that have been touched upon by the evidence.”
Adjourning the hearing so the process can continue, the judge told counsel: “I will require an affidavit as to how all of this came about.”