Chris Cairns is set to face a further legal battle next year, with the former Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi launching a £1.5m claim in the High Court in light of evidence heard during the cricketer’s recently concluded perjury trial.
On Monday the former New Zealand captain was found not guilty of lying under oath when he told a court in 2012, during a libel victory over the Indian businessman Modi, that he had “never cheated at cricket and would never contemplate doing so”.
Modi, who tweeted two years earlier that he had excluded Cairns from the IPL auction due to a previous history of match-mixing while playing in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League, was forced to pay £90,000 in damages to Cairns as part of a £1.5m settlement.
That case, however, did not hear from either the former batsman Lou Vincent or the current New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, both of whom gave evidence against Cairns’ during his recent criminal case at Southwark Crown Court, in which he was acquitted by a majority verdict following an eight-week trial.
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Modi’s lawyers have now lodged a case to have the libel verdict set aside and sue him for fraud in a bid to reclaim the payout, with a civil suit having a lower standard of proof than a criminal case.
Cairns would be forced to return to the UK to defend the claim, although neither Vincent nor McCullum would be legally obliged to appear as it would be a civil trial, with both living outside the jurisdiction of the court.
Asked about the prospect of a further legal battle with Modi, Cairns on Monday told Newstalk ZB radio in New Zealand: “In the words of [Winston] Churchill, it is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning.
“I think a man with his means and his power, he lurks out there and I have to be very, very conscious of that. I will take stock and deal with that situation and, if it does come about, I will take it in my stride.”
