Mediation, Interim Relief, and Costs Discipline in Heavy Commercial Chancery Litigation: Lessons from
Gable Insurance AG v Dewsall & Ors
[2025] EWHC 3399 (Ch)
The decision in [2025] EWHC 3399 (Ch) (Vos DJ, 23 December 2025) is formally a costs judgment, but it reads as a practical handbook on how the Business and Property Courts will evaluate party conduct, proportionality, and ADR engagement after high-stakes litigation that has been dominated by freezing injunctions, a search order, and satellite applications.
It is also an object lesson in the economic rationale for mediation: where interim applications and disclosure warfare generate multi-million-pound spend, mediation is often the only realistic tool capable of protecting the underlying recovery (or defence) from being consumed by process.
What happened in the underlying dispute
The costs judgment followed a two-week trial in July 2025, with liability judgment handed down on 5 September 2025.
In summary:
- The claimant, Gable Insurance AG (in liquidation) (GIAG), pursued claims arising from alleged misappropriations and related transactions against:
- Mr William Dewsall (former CEO),
- Mr Michael Hirschfield,
- Mrs Judith Dewsall, and
- Horatio Risk Consulting LLP.
- GIAG’s case succeeded in significant respects against certain defendants, but failed entirely against Mrs Dewsall.
- A central proprietary aspect concerned Weald Hall and the proceeds of sale; the main judgment is reported as rejecting GIAG’s proprietary/tracing case against Mrs Dewsall, with commentary noting the court held she was entitled to the sale proceeds.
The litigation then moved into consequentials and costs. The December judgment addressed the distribution of costs consequences across an unusually complex series of interim measures.
The litigation was dominated by “hard” interim remedies
Three strands mattered:
- A first worldwide freezing order (WFO) against Mr Dewsall (July–August 2023).
- A search order (July 2024), including contested privilege/review issues and a contempt/bench-warrant episode when access was initially refused.
- A second WFO (November 2024) which ultimately became a domestic freezing order, after the alleged offshore account evidence did not withstand scrutiny.
The search order costs alone were described as being in the region of £4.8 million (with substantial post-execution review costs).
This is the environment in which mediation becomes not “nice to have”, but an economic necessity: if a case can be resolved (or narrowed) before the interim escalation, the value preserved can dwarf any negotiated discount.
How mediation was relevant to the outcome
Mediation did not decide liability; the court did. But mediation—more precisely, the parties’ ADR conduct—was directly relevant to the costs outcome, and the judgment is a useful guide to what the court expects.
1) A failure to engage in ADR can matter in principle—yet it must be pleaded and evidenced properly
GIAG argued for a substantial reduction (25–40%) in the costs payable to Mrs Dewsall (who had successfully defended the claim against her), relying in part on her failure to engage in ADR prior to being joined.
The court accepted the principle—unreasonable ADR refusal can sound in costs—but rejected GIAG’s complaint on the facts because the mediation proposal was not framed as a clear invitation to resolve the claim against Mrs Dewsall specifically. The key correspondence was largely directed to resolving the claim against Mr Dewsall, and Mrs Dewsall did not, at that stage, have clarity about the case against her.
Practical point: if you want ADR conduct to carry weight at the end of the case, your invitation must be:
- directed to the relevant party,
- clear as to what is proposed (scope, format, timing),
- and, critically, clear whether you are offering to resolve a discrete sub-dispute (e.g., the claim against a spouse/third party) rather than only the “main” claim.
2) The judgment reinforces that “ADR letters” must match the case structure
A repeated feature of complex multiparty litigation is that different defendants occupy different positions (primary wrongdoer, alleged accessory, innocent recipient, etc.). This judgment shows the court will scrutinise whether an ADR proposal realistically addressed those different positions.
Here, the court regarded it as unrealistic to expect Mrs Dewsall to engage in mediation “in isolation” in circumstances where the claim against her was limited and the claimant’s proposal was framed around the wider case against her husband.
Mediation lesson: in multiparty disputes, a mediator can add exceptional value by:
- structuring sequenced mediations (e.g., first with the primary actor; then “carve-outs” with peripheral parties),
- or running modular settlement (partial settlements, side letters, undertakings, asset-based arrangements).
3) ADR is part of the court’s overall “conduct” assessment under CPR 44.2
The court rooted the exercise in CPR 44.2: broad discretion, with conduct (including ADR engagement) as a relevant factor.
The important nuance is that ADR conduct was not treated as a moral badge; it was weighed alongside:
- disclosure performance,
- proportionality,
- how interim tools were pursued,
- and whether costs were generated by “tooth and nail” resistance versus largely unopposed or consented processes (relevant to the Dos Santos discussion).
Why this case illustrates the benefits of mediation
Even though the dispute reached trial, Gable v Dewsall demonstrates why mediation is often the most rational forum for resolving (or sharply narrowing) cases featuring interim relief.
Benefit 1: Preserving value—when process costs threaten the recoveries
When a single interim measure can generate seven-figure costs (as here), the economic risk is not merely “legal spend”; it is the possibility that the litigation becomes value-destructive for both sides.
A mediation held at the right time—often immediately after early disclosure, or after the first return date—can:
- re-price risk,
- impose commercial reality on litigation positions,
- and create off-ramps before satellite disputes multiply.
Benefit 2: Managing interim relief risk and “evidence fragility”
This case also shows how interim relief applications can be undermined if supporting evidence later proves unreliable. The court reduced costs substantially in relation to the second WFO, reflecting GIAG’s failure to establish overseas accounts and concerns about the evidential foundation by the relevant stage.
Mediation can be used to negotiate asset protection by consent—for example:
- agreed disclosure and asset schedules,
- undertakings,
- controlled sales with proceeds into escrow/court,
- or “ring-fencing” arrangements—avoiding the reputational and costs exposure of aggressive without-notice steps.
Benefit 3: Narrowing issues between parties with different culpability profiles
The costs judgment shows the court’s sensitivity to the fact that the search order against Mrs Dewsall was largely driven by the case against Mr Dewsall; despite incomplete disclosure being revealed, the court ultimately made no order as to costs between GIAG and Mrs Dewsall on the search order, reflecting overall justice in a multi-defendant scenario.
That is exactly the sort of complexity where mediation is strongest:
- it can deliver differentiated outcomes (settlement with one party; continued pursuit of another),
- without forcing everything into an all-or-nothing trial structure.
Benefit 4: Costs certainty and reputational containment
The judgment is saturated with costs categorisation: standard vs indemnity; percentage reductions; set-off; and the downstream arguments about payments on account and sale proceeds.
Mediation is often the only setting in which parties can achieve:
- a global costs solution,
- including pragmatic compromises on reserved costs,
- and confidentiality protections that are otherwise lost once judgments are handed down.
Concluding practice points
- Treat ADR as a case strategy, not a box-ticking exercise. In multi-party disputes, tailor the ADR invitation to each defendant’s position.
- Use mediation to control interim escalation. If you foresee freezing/search applications, consider whether the same protective outcome can be achieved by mediated undertakings and structured disclosure.
- Be realistic about what the court will do with ADR arguments in costs. The court will look at clarity, timing, and fairness of the proposal—not just whether a party “failed to mediate”.
- Remember the commercial endpoint. A “successful” litigation journey can still be economically irrational if recoveries are eroded by interlocutory warfare.