Banner Universal Motion Pictures Limited v Wiggin LLP & Anor

Introduction

1. This Judgment deals with an application by Mr Banner and his company, Banner Universal Motion Pictures Ltd, in Chancery Appeal CH-2024-000061. These are the only extant proceedings before the Court. The Appeal was against the Orders of Deputy Master Linwood dated 23 February 2024 in which he granted summary judgment in favour of the Defendants (the Respondents to the Appeal, as named in the heading) for the reasons set out in his careful judgment (the neutral citation for which is [2024] EWHC 656 (Ch) ), in which he also made it clear there were multiple grounds for doing so. Background

2. The Appeal did not pass the first hurdle when I refused permission to appeal on the papers in my Order dated 21 May 2024. In [4] of my reasons I said this: ‘4. I came very close to certifying that this Appeal was wholly without merit. A consequence of that is that if Mr Banner wishes to avail himself of the opportunity to renew his application for permission to appeal orally, he would be well advised to focus on what he perceives to be his best points and to make them as succinctly as possible.’

3. Mr Banner did avail himself of that opportunity and his renewed oral application for permission to appeal was rejected by Richard Smith J. and certified as totally without merit (see his Order dated 28 June 2024 (stamped on 1 July 2024)).

4. Following that Order, Mr Banner’s obdurate refusal to take ‘no’ as the answer is evidenced by the following.

5. First, Mr Banner applied to reopen the Appeal pursuant to CPR 52.30(1). His application was considered on the papers by Trower J. and rejected for the extensive reasons set out in his Order dated 25 July 2024. Trower J. also certified that application as totally without merit.

6. Second, Mr Banner then proceeded to bombard the Court staff over many months with letters and emails which made it clear that he continued to refuse to recognise the validity of the Orders made by Richard Smith J. and Trower J.. Despite being told (correctly) that his Appeal was at an end, Mr Banner refused to accept this.

7. Third, Mr Banner then issued an application by notice dated 6 May 2025, with extensive accompanying documentation, seeking an Order (1) pursuant to CPR3.1(7) to set aside the Order of Richard Smith J. dated 28 June 2024 and (2) to relist a further oral hearing for permission to appeal before me.

8. Fourth, by my Order dated 23 May 2025, I rejected that application and certified it as totally without merit.

9. Fifth, for the reasons explained in my judgment of 23 May 2025, the neutral citation of which is [2025] EWHC 1287 (Ch) , I made an Extended Civil Restraint Order (‘ECRO’) also dated 23 May 2025 against Mr Banner and his company, Banner Universal Motion Pictures Ltd. That judgment sets out the history of the perceived grievance which Mr Banner has pursued for well over a decade stemming from his conviction that a format devised by him for a TV gameshow entitled ‘Minute Winner’ was copied when another TV game entitled ‘Minute to Win It’ was devised and created. This allegation was rejected by the Swedish Courts (2014-2017) and in a High Court action here (HC-2016-001395). In the latter action, a case management conference was heard by Snowden J. (as he then was) on 8-11 November 2016, resulting in his judgment dated 19 October 2017, the neutral citation for which is [2017] EWHC 2600 (Ch) . Snowden J. concluded that all the claims were without realistic prospects of success or barred res judicata or as an abuse of the process. The action was dismissed in its entirety. In that action, the Appellant’s solicitors were Fox Williams LLP and the solicitors acting for the successful Defendants were Wiggin LLP.

10. Sixth (as I explained in my ECRO Judgment): ‘13. As recorded in the Judgment of Deputy Master Linwood at [16]-[17], Mr Banner then turned his ire on his previous solicitors and even those representing the successful defendants. He proceeded to make allegations of professional misconduct against RPC, the firm representing Fox Williams LLP, and complaints to Aviva, Fox Williams’ insurers, followed by complaints to the SRA of professional misconduct, dishonesty and fraud against the individual solicitors/partners involved: Mr Wyles at RPC, Mr Oldroyd at Browne Jacobson LLP, representing Wiggin LLP, Caroline Kean of Wiggin LLP and Simon Bennett of Fox Williams LLP.

14. After extensive correspondence, on 20 October 2023, the Appellant brought the claim (BL-2023-001403) against those firms of solicitors: (1) Wiggin LLP and (2) Fox Williams LLP. Against Fox Williams LLP, the claim was for professional negligence, breach of the retainer agreement and breach of duty of care, but also, by way of proposed amendments, civil fraud and corruption. The claim was based on various alleged failings by Fox Williams in their conduct of the Appellant’s 2016 claim, including, in particular, their failure to put three particular documents before Snowden J.

15. As against Wiggin LLP, the claim was said to arise out of ‘statements and new allegations by Wiggin made to the Claimant in a letter of 7 February 2019’, a letter written by Caroline Kean, a partner in Wiggin LLP, in the course of the extensive correspondence which preceded this 2023 claim. The allegations against Wiggin LLP were breach of duty and obligation to the Court to disclose relevant facts and documents, and the alleged failings led to the Claimant’s claims being struck out (by Snowden J.). By proposed amendments, the Claimant sought to add an allegation of breach of CPR31 for failure to disclose and further and detailed allegations of dishonesty, fraud and deceit, and perjury, racism and discrimination. The Claimant sought damages in total against both Wiggin and Fox Williams of £55m, plus aggravated and exemplary damages for fraud and corruption against Fox Williams.

16. As summarised by DM Linwood, this was the situation which he had to address in his judgment of 23 February 2024 which underpinned his two Orders of the same date the subject of the Appeal. As I have already indicated, he decided that summary judgment should be granted against the Claimant and in favour of the defendants on the entire claim, on multiple grounds.’

11. Mr Banner then issued an application by notice dated 29 May 2025, with extensive documentation, seeking to set aside, vary or stay the ECRO. I refused that application and certified it as totally without merit in my Order dated 2 July 2025 (which was revised under the slip rule on 4 July 2025 to recognise that Mr Banner had issued his application, contrary to what I thought on 2 July 2025), giving the following reasons for refusing it: ‘1. The grounds in support of the application rehearse the same complaints as have already been considered multiple times by numerous Judges: DM Linwood, myself, Richard Smith J and Trower J. The application seeks, in effect, to set aside all the findings made by those Judges and all the assessments that the applications made by Mr Banner (and/or his company) were totally without merit.

2. The application also reinforces the findings I made in the Judgment that Mr Banner simply refuses to take ‘no’ as the answer. His assertions that his complaints (including racism) have not been considered are wrong.’

12. Notwithstanding my revised Order of 2 July 2025, subsequent to his application dated 29 May 2025, Mr Banner continued to bombard the Court with communications both before and after my Order of 2 July 2025. I set out a flavour of those communications in the recitals to a further Order I made on 7 July 2025: ‘AND UPON reading the correspondence sent by Mr Banner to the Court since the Application was filed at the following id numbers on CE-file, namely, 78-85, 88-90 AND UPON the Order dated 2 July 2025 (revised on 4 July 2025) AND UPON reading the further correspondence sent by Mr Banner to the Court since the Order dated 2 July 2025, filed at the following id numbers on CE-file, namely, 92-94, 96-98, plus his email sent on 7 July 2025 at 7.56am alleging harassment, data protection violations, stalking, breach of ethical duties and mooting a civil claim for damages for harassment, breach of data protection’

13. The basis of his complaints at this stage was his allegation of ‘Unaddressed Evidence’. The ‘evidence’ comprised Mr Banner’s conspiracy theory as to how everyone who had been targeted by his litigation had conspired to defeat his claims. As I mentioned in my reasons for making the further Order of 7 July 2025, Mr Banner was contending that ‘ the court is compelled to show precisely how and where it grappled with these critical issues’ , where his critical issues were a series of 9 points. In my reasons I pointed out that 2 of his critical issues were based on his misunderstanding of routine procedural matters regarding how applications are listed before Judges, that the other 7 critical issues were argued before and considered by Deputy Master Linwood and that whether Deputy Master Linwood made any appealable error had been considered and rejected by 3 High Court Judges. I also explained in those reasons that: ‘4. …Mr Banner has already occupied a disproportionate amount of judicial resource in pursuing claims without any merit. The fact that Mr Banner has constructed his own theory does not provide his Appeal with any merit.’

14. As for his allegation of unaddressed evidence, I explained: ‘5. …Mr Banner’s repeated demands are based on a misunderstanding of the judicial process. A Judge is not obliged (or ‘compelled’) to address specifically every point made by an applicant when rejecting an application.’

15. As indicated in my Order of 7 July 2025, I treated his communications as an application for permission to appeal against the ECRO but refused permission. My Order also made it clear that any appeal against the grant of the ECRO would have to be made to the Court of Appeal. In the reasons for making that order, I also made the status of the Appeal very clear in this concluding paragraph: ‘7. Consequently, this Appeal is at an end and no further applications will be entertained. There is no appeal from the decisions to refuse permission to appeal and to refuse to re-open the Appeal.’

16. Within a very short time of receiving the sealed Order of 7 July 2025, Mr Banner filed further communications to the Court, e.g. a 5 page ‘Urgent Request for Clarification regarding Unaddressed Evidence….’, filed on 7 July 2025 on CE file at id 100, followed by further and more lengthy communications in the same vein, recorded on the Court file at id 101-103, four communications in September 2025, one in October 2025, two in December 2025 and two in January 2026 (at id 105-113).

17. In conjunction with his filings on CE-file, Mr Banner has emailed my clerk directly a number of times (4 December 2025 and 8, 23, 26 and 27 January 2026) and it is those emails which prompted me to prepare this further Judgment. Even as I was finalising this Judgment, Mr Banner sent a further email (28 January 2026, 7.32 am), rehearsing yet again his demands as to what the Court needed to do. Mr Banner’s latest application

18. I should explain what Mr Banner is now seeking. His communication dated 4 December 2025 (copied to everyone he thinks is involved) was a document entitled PROVISIONAL BREAKDOWN OF COMPENSATION DEMANDS. The total monetary amount he demanded in this document was £342,600,000, comprising: i) £28,000,000 for ‘void orders’ ‘including the false ‘ Totally Without Merit’ labelling of claims’. ii) £42,400,000 for alleged ‘Unfair Treatment, Discrimination, Threats, Surveillance, Concealment, Deceit’. iii) £17,200,000 for alleged ‘Professional Negligence (Fox Williams)’ iv) £106,000,000 for ‘Loss of Earnings (Related to Intellectual Property – Minute to Win it) v) £43,000,000 for alleged ‘Consequential Damages (Loss of Business). vi) £62,000,000 for alleged ‘Loss of Earning (related to Intellectual Property – Luxury Trap)’. vii) £43,000,000 for alleged ‘Punitive Damages’, a figure which includes interest and ‘Corporate Tax/Capital Gains Tax’ at 25% of a subtotal.

19. Mr Banner also specified, and I quote: ‘In addition to the monetary compensation and damages outlined above, the following legal remedies must be applied:

1. Setting Aside of Orders : All court orders relating to this matter must be set aside, including the Order of 2017 and the void orders of 2023, 2024, and the unfounded and baseless ECRO of 2025.

2. IPR Recognition : BUMP’s proprietary rights to Minute To Win It and Luxury Trap, including all associated trademark rights, must be fully and formally recognised.

3. Injunction : The clients of Wiggin must be subject to an immediate injunction requiring them to cease and desist from all unlawful exploitation of Minute To Win It and Luxury Trap absent a formal agreement with BUMP. No Legal costs are being charged within this schedule.’

20. On 19 December 2025, Mr Banner filed a lengthy draft Order and supporting documents which sought to give effect to his demands, albeit the total monetary sum claimed had increased to £352,000,000.

21. On 4 January 2026, Mr Banner sent his ‘Request for Urgent Approval and Sealing of Unopposed Draft Order’, noting that the Defendants/Respondents had not filed any objection to it.

22. On 8 January 2026, Mr Banner repeated that request, contending by way of conclusion: ‘In light of the Defendants' non-opposition and the Court's own duty to correct the record regarding void orders, the Claimant respectfully requests the immediate approval and sealing of the Draft Order to bring this matter to its necessary conclusion.’

23. In his email to my clerk on 23 January 2026, Mr Banner repeated his point that the Defendants had not raised any objection to his draft Order and asked whether it had been placed before me for signature and when his Company should expect to receive the approved and sealed Order.

24. In his email to my clerk dated 27 January 2026, Mr Banner requested ‘administrative intervention regarding an outstanding Unopposed Draft Order’ (i.e. his draft Order submitted on 19 December 2025). It was this email which persuaded me to prepare this further Judgment in an attempt to shield the Court staff (including my clerk) from further unnecessary communications from Mr Banner. Conclusions

25. Not only does Mr Banner continue to refuse to take ‘no’ as the answer, in his latest demand – his draft Order – he has entered the realm of pure fantasy. He now appears to contend that he can move straight to the remedies sought in his draft Order without any judicial process in which he needs to prove his entitlement. As already indicated, there is zero merit to his claims.

26. Nonetheless, I treat his recent communications as an application under the ECRO to bring an application which seeks not only to set aside all the orders made against his company in both his High Court actions, but also for judgment in his company’s favour for damages in the total sum of £352,000,000. I refuse that application and certify it as totally without merit.

27. In case Mr Banner has not realised this, under the ECRO the Defendants/Respondents are not under any obligation at all to respond to any of his further demands unless I or another Judge give Mr Banner permission under the ECRO to serve an application on any of them seeking any relief within the scope of the ECRO. Were any such permission to be given, the application would then be responded to and the Court would decide it on its merits.

28. In this case, not only has no permission been given under the ECRO, there has been no determination in favour of Mr Banner or his company. To the contrary in fact, which is why he recognises he must seek to set aside all the Orders made against his Company in either the 2017 Action or the 2023 Action or the Appeal, as well as the ECRO which is against himself and his company. Even if Mr Banner had merit on his side (which he does not), it would not be possible to set aside all those Orders or to grant the relief he now seeks in the summary fashion which Mr Banner envisages. All those Orders stand and none of them are ‘void’, as he contends. In short, it is pure fantasy on Mr Banner’s part if he believes (a) his draft Order is unopposed or (b) there is any ground at all for that draft Order being approved or sealed. As I have already made clear, his request for the approval and sealing of his draft Order is totally without merit .

29. I cannot shut Mr Banner out from making further applications under the ECRO, but he should realise that if he continues to make the same allegations as he has done in the Appeal, he cannot expect them to continue to occupy valuable resources of the Court administration and the judiciary. Furthermore, although on this occasion I have not required Mr Banner to pay the appropriate fee before addressing the application, in future, no communication to the Court will be considered unless it is properly formulated as an application notice under the ECRO and the appropriate fee paid.