A claimant’s evidence to the Insolvency and Companies Court has been dismissed after he was found to have been coached through smart glasses during cross-examination.
Businessman Laimonas Jakstys, who was seeking an order to be reinstated as a director of the defendant company, went into the witness box on the second afternoon of the nine-day trial in UAB Business Enterprise & Anor v Oneta Ltd & Or.
Judge Raquel Agnello KC observed that, from the start of cross examination through a Lithuanian interpreter, Jakstys seemed to pause for quite long before replying to questions. It emerged that Jakstys was wearing smart glasses and he was ordered to remove them. After further questions, when the interpreter was translating a question, Jakstys’ mobile phone began playing the voice of ‘someone clearly on the phone talking to him’, the judgment stated.
Jakstys denied he was using the smart glasses to receive answers to give in court and denied that they were connected to his phone. But call logs showed he had repeatedly called a person listed on his phone as ‘abra kadabra’, including one call made three minutes before he was due to enter the witness box. Jakstys said this person was just a taxi driver and he was calling to give updates on when he might be required.
The judge said Jakstys was being untruthful and his explanation about the calls lacked any credibility. She added: ‘In my judgment, the smart glasses were clearly connected to his mobile phone during his cross examination because no voice was heard out loud until his smart glasses were removed and disconnected from his glasses.’
Jakstys, it was submitted by the defence, was being coached by a lawyer called Dr Paulius Miliauskas who had acted for the claimant in Lithuanian proceedings and who was listening to the case on a video link. The judge accepted he was being assisted or coached by someone and was being untruthful in his explanation about the glasses and calls to abra kadabra.
The judge said Jakstys was unable to reply to many of the issues set out in his witness statements because he had no personal knowledge and it was clear that arguments and submissions made were not his. In her judgment, the unreliability of his evidence arose not just because he was untruthful and being coached, but also because the content of his witness statements had clearly been prepared by others.
The judge noted that, once Jakstys no longer had his smart glasses, he hesitated before providing answers to questions and ‘was effectively seeking to stick to a script’. She added: ‘I reject Mr Jakstys evidence in its entirety. He was untruthful in relation to his use about the smart glasses and in being coached through the smart glasses. He had a blatant disregard for the signing of the disclosure certificate and carrying out his disclosure obligations.’
