That Times article is a wonderful example of a story spun from gossamer, incredibly low on factual information but spun as hard as possible nonetheless.
Broken down: they asked Sentabale who is funding the litigation, and the charity declined to comment. They write a paragraph outlining all the questions they asked, nonetheless. They have no idea whether any of them are accurate, mind!
They quote generic guidance given to charities about litigation on gov.uk about the importance of charities carefully considering any litigation (which to be fair applies to all potential litigants, charity or not!) without mentioning that plenty of charities do start court proceedings without scrutiny, including to fend off challenges from families to gifts in wills and to protect their reputations (Kids Company successfully sued the Charities Commission itself in that regard).
They ask the Charities Commission a series of questions and report the answers as if the concerns came from the regulator rather than them: e.g. the charity had not applied for formal regulatory advice. Which as they acknowledge in the article was an answer “no” to a question from The Times. They do at least point out that this process is not mandatory, but do not ask the Commission how often this happens, or whether it is common for Charity Boards using reputable City lawyers and with experienced professional Boards to do so.
The only real point of interest to me in that whole article - the Commission confirmed it had known of the planned lawsuit since February. So Sentabale has been transparent with its regulator and the Commission has had plenty of time to ask any questions it may have about the action (which it acknowledges, stating it is working with the charity to understand the aims. This is presented in the article as if they’ve been blindsided though, of course!)
But hey, here’s a nothingburger of an article doubtless being highly circulated on twitter with relevant sections highlighted just as a poster has done above and the Times collects the clicks and smiles happily, job done…,
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charities-and-litigation-a-guide-for-trustees-cc38/charities-and-litigation-a-guide-for-trustees#:~:text=Trustees%20have%20a%20general%20duty,46%20of%20the%20Charities%20Act.