Timokhin v Timokhina: High Court refuses stay and awards indemnity costs following Russian judgement enforcement ruling

The King's Bench Division has handed down its consequentials judgement in Timokhin v Timokhina [2026] EWHC 1194 (KB), resolving outstanding matters of stay, costs, interest, and payment on account following Mr Justice Dexter Dias's earlier trial judgement ([2026] EWHC 439 (KB)), in which the court recognised and enforced two Russian judgments arising from a disputed post-nuptial agreement between former spouses of Russian nationality. The underlying debt stands at £417,416.67.

Stay applications dismissed

Anna Timokhina applied under CPR 52.16 for a stay on two grounds: pending a domestic appeal, and pending Russian bankruptcy proceedings. Both were refused.

On the domestic appeal, Dias J applied the Hammond Suddard balance of harm test and found the scales tipped decisively in favour of the claimant, Alexander Timokhin. His UK assets include an investment portfolio valued at £2.8 million as at 22 April 2026, held at a London-registered, FCA-regulated private bank, alongside a Bentley motor vehicle estimated at between £140,000 and £250,000. Any sum recoverable on a successful appeal would represent a modest fraction of his overall wealth and could straightforwardly be made good.

The court was less sympathetic to Ms Timokhina's position. Her sole UK asset, a Hampstead property, is let rather than occupied by her. More significantly, Dias J noted a prior Russian court finding that she had gifted her St Petersburg apartment to her mother by deed of gift in April 2021, with the financial manager in her Russian bankruptcy proceedings now seeking to reverse that transfer. She had also pleaded guilty in Russia to corruption, having attempted to bribe an official to create difficulties for Mr Timokhin in legal proceedings, receiving a custodial sentence subsequently suspended on appeal. The court found a real risk of dissipation and declined to grant any stay.

The Russian bankruptcy application fared no better. Ms Timokhina's own representatives had confirmed she had no movable or immovable property in Russia, and she has no other creditors there aside from Mr Timokhin. The court found no special circumstances under CPR 83.7(4)(a) that would render UK enforcement inexpedient, and nothing to suggest a genuine risk of double recovery.

Part 36 consequences applied in full

The claimant's Part 36 offer of £380,000, representing a discount of approximately nine per cent on the full claim, was made on 20 May 2025. Ms Timokhina did not accept it, and Mr Timokhin succeeded entirely at trial.

The defendant argued the offer was not a genuine attempt to settle, relying on CPR 36.17(5)(e). Dias J rejected this, holding that a high offer was objectively justified given the strength of the claim, and that the binary nature of recognition and enforcement proceedings did not render a near-full-value offer inappropriate. The defendant had failed to meet the "formidable obstacle" of establishing injustice, as articulated in Smith v Trafford Housing Trust [2012] EWHC 3320 (Ch).

Costs to the expiry of the relevant period were awarded on the standard basis; thereafter, on the indemnity basis. The court fixed interest at six per cent above base rate from the expiry of the relevant period, declining both the claimant's proposed eight per cent and the defendant's contention of one per cent. A ten per cent additional payment was also ordered.

Interest and payment on account

Interest on the debt was awarded at five per cent from the date of the second Russian judgement (11 October 2023), with Judgments Act interest of eight per cent running from the date of the payment order. The court dismissed a pleading objection to the interest award, noting both that CPR Part 16 does not apply to Part 8 claims and that, in any event, the defendant had identified no prejudice flowing from any deficiency.

On payment on account, Dias J ordered 65 per cent of costs, reflecting a high likelihood of recovery at detailed assessment given the indemnity basis and interest awarded.