Former judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales
Dame Elizabeth Gloster, Lady Popplewell, DBE, PC (born 5 June 1949[1]) is a British lawyer who was a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Vice-President of the Civil Division. She was the first female judge of the Commercial Court.[2]
Career
Gloster was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1971 (and made a bencher in 1992).[4] In 1989, she became a Queen's Counsel. She was appointed a judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey in 1993 and a Recorder in 1995.[5]
On 21 April 2004, Gloster was appointed a High Court judge,[6] receiving the customary appointment as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) and allocated to the Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court).[7] From 2010 to 2012, she was the judge in charge of the Commercial Court.[5]
Gloster heard a case in 2012 involving two Russian oligarchs in which Boris Berezovsky claimed Roman Abramovich had intimidated him into selling shares in Russian oil giant Sibneft. and was claiming £3bn in damages.[8] She found Berezovsky to be "an inherently unreliable witness" and found in favour of Abramovich. An editorial in The Times agreed with the judge's conclusion.[9] At the start of the trial she had disclosed in court that her stepson had represented Abramovich as a barrister at an early stage of the case.[10][11] Berezovsky's lawyers said their client had no objection to her continuing to hear the case. They later claimed that the barrister's involvement for which he had been paid £469,000 in fees had been understated but did not appeal against the judgment.[12] Asked outside the court if he felt Russia's President Vladimir Putin would be happy with the ruling, Berezovsky replied: "Sometimes I have the impression that Putin himself wrote this judgment."[13] A Statement from the Judicial Office which represents judges said Dame Elizabeth's stepson had not appeared at any hearings where she had been present. The statement said: "Where a judge has disclosed a family relationship to the parties, it is a judicial decision whether a judge believes he or she should recuse him or herself. The way to challenge a decision not to recuse would be by appealing through the courts."[14]
On 9 April 2013, Dame Elizabeth was appointed a Lady Justice of Appeal[15] and consequently appointed to the Privy Council.[16]
She became Vice-President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal on 7 December 2016, on the retirement of Lord Justice Moore-Bick.[17] She retired from the Court of Appeal on 1 June 2018.[7]
Judgments
Private life
In 2005, Elizabeth Gloster was divorced from Stanley Brodie QC. On 15 March 2008, she married Sir Oliver Popplewell.[18]
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