The island’s space age ambitions may have come crashing down to Earth – but a long-running legal dispute over allegations of fraud has seen costs rocket.
But the space programme never left the ground and the Soviet-era technology that was apparently to have been used was put on display at the Jurby Motor Museum.
Since 2014 the island-based space exploration company behind the programme, Excalibur Almaz, has been embroiled in a legal battle with Japanese entrepreneur Takafumi Horie.
Mr Horie lodged a claim in a court in Texas in November of that year alleging fraud, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty against Excalibur Almaz chairman and Texas attorney Art Dula, associate attorney in Dula’s law office Anat Friedman and business partner John Buckner Hightower.
He alleged he was fraudulently induced into investing $49m into a space travel enterprise when in reality, he claims, there never was and never would be any such business.
But his claims were dismissed by the Texas courts in March 2017 and his appeal was dismissed in September 2018.
Excalibur Almas issued a claim in 2015 against Mr Horie in the island’s high court, seeking enforcement of a 2010 agreement which they say indemnified them against costs. The company is also seeking damages for alleged breach of that agreement.
Its claim and Mr Horie’s counterclaim have been set down for trial currently listed to take place in the Manx court between January 15 and 26 next year.
Key to the dispute is a 2010 deed of assignment and settlement signed by Mr Horie.
Excalibur Almaz says that document discharged the company from any claim ’whether known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected’ and any dispute had to be settled in the Manx courts.
Mr Horie, in his counterclaim, alleges the settlement deed and other agreements were procured by fraud.
In a previous judgment from 2018, Deemster Andrew Corlett concluded that the Japanese investor had a real prospect of success in defending his claim.
Now in a new judgment, Deemster Corlett has ordered that Mr Horie pay £30,000 into court by way of security for the claimants’ costs.
Excalibur Almaz had sought 80% of the £2m costs they had incurred since February 2020 – the date of service of the amended defence and counterclaim – by way of security.
They said this very large sum, of around £1.6m, was justified by the complex nature of the proceedings.
But Mr Horie’s lawyer said the security should be limited to the additional costs of enforcement of any costs order in Japan.
The court heard Mr Horie had substantial shareholdings said to be worth £142m in Interstellar Technologies Co Ltd and was also said to own 545,000 shares in advertising and market company Inclusive Inc, currently valued at £5.50 per share.
Deemster Corlett said it was perplexing that the claimants had delayed making a security for costs application, and one of such magnitude, in the effective run-up to a trial.
He said: ‘In the absence of evidence of this particular defendant’s predilection to delay and obstruct, I must take the view that enforcement will be no easier or more difficult than the average case. I therefore assess the likely costs of enforcing a Manx costs judgment at £30,000.’