The instruction arrived as one sentence from a chief executive at 23:40 on a Sunday: "They have stopped paying and started briefing journalists — fix both."
The joint venture had soured the way they do: slowly for two years, then all at once. Our client's former partner owed £340m under a supply agreement and had chosen the modern defence — pay nothing, allege everything, and let the press do the discovery. By Monday morning the conflicts check had cleared. By Monday evening, the litigation hold was in place and the loudest voices on both sides had been, in the traditional phrase, invited to focus on their day jobs.
The strategy: silence as pressure
We filed at the SIAC within three weeks — faster than anyone expected, before the press narrative could set. Then we did the thing that unsettles opponents most: nothing visible. No statements, no leaks, no responses to the stories. Meanwhile the chronology grew to four hundred pinned documents and the tribunal saw a case built like a trial, exhibit by exhibit.
Month nine brought the turn: our application on the documents was granted in full, and the other side's own disclosure produced the email their press strategy could not survive. We did not use it publicly. We placed it, without comment, in the middle of a settlement bundle — page 214 of 300 — and requested a meeting.
The outcome
Settlement at month fourteen: £290m paid over three years, secured; the joint venture unwound on our client's terms; mutual confidentiality with teeth. Both companies' share prices did precisely nothing on the day of signature, because nobody outside two boardrooms knew there was anything to react to.
The client's board asked for a closing memorandum. It ran to one page. The chairman is said to have framed it — we have chosen not to confirm this, on principle.