The Dubai Civil Court of First Instance dismissed a lawsuit filed by an individual and a company seeking to compel their opponents to submit the originals of five documents, including a receipt for a $500,000 cryptocurrency transfer, emails and invoices. The plaintiffs wanted to obtain the documents to challenge them as forged. However, the court ruled that the documents had already been used in a criminal case and should have been challenged during those proceedings, not through a separate forgery lawsuit after the case had concluded.
According to court records, the plaintiffs sought the originals of five documents, including a receipt for a $500,000 cryptocurrency transfer, another receipt for the same amount, an email attributed to the owner of the plaintiff company and two invoices in English. They claimed the documents contained false information and had been used against them in a criminal case.
The plaintiffs said the defendants had submitted the documents before the criminal court and that a court-appointed expert had relied on them as evidence supporting the defendants’ case. They therefore sought the originals in preparation for contesting them as forged.
The court ruled the lawsuit inadmissible, stressing that an original forgery action is only permitted when a person fears that a forged document may be used against them in the future. If the document has already been submitted before a court, the proper legal route is to allege forgery during the proceedings in which it was presented.
The court noted that the plaintiffs themselves acknowledged that the disputed documents had already been submitted to the criminal court and reviewed by an expert committee appointed in that case. As a result, the key requirement for filing an original forgery lawsuit was no longer met.
The court added that a party that fails to raise a forgery claim during the hearing of the original case cannot later bypass legal procedures by filing an independent forgery lawsuit. Such a claim, it said, is a defence that must be raised before the court hearing the dispute.
The court further noted that the purpose of an original forgery lawsuit is to protect those who fear a forged document may be used against them in the future. Once the document has already been relied on in legal proceedings, any challenge falls within the jurisdiction of the court hearing that dispute.
