Claim No: BL-2022-002046 - [2025] EWHC 2534 (Ch)

This is my decision following the hearing of 2 applications; namely:

The claimant was represented at the hearing by Ms Daria Gleyze of counsel and the defendants were represented by Mr Sebastian Kokelaar of counsel. I am grateful to counsel for their assistance.

The POC run to twenty four pages. The APOC run to thirty nine pages, comprising of one hundred and eight paragraphs (made up of multiple sub-paragraphs in many instances), apparently introduce, for the first time, claims against non-parties and seek to revive claims against former parties (see, e.g. para.72.5 of the APOC), and include a prayer which effectively extends over three sides of A4 paper. I am doubtful that either statement of case, the APOC in particular, fully complies with Ch.4 of the Chancery Guide (see paras.4.2-4.7 in particular). That alone calls into question whether the claim should be permitted to proceed on the basis of either statement of case, although that is not substantively the way the parties contested the applications. Nevertheless, the form of the statements of case (about which I comment further below) has meant that a critical eye has had to be cast over them and, more immediately for present purposes, a pragmatic solution has needed to be found to deal with the applications, otherwise they ran the risk of taking as long as a trial. The pragmatic approach counsel adopted has been to deal with the statements of case thematically, rather than objected-to paragraph after objected-to paragraph, without any particular focus, save to a limited extent, on the precise wording of the statements of case. That is the approach I therefore adopt in this judgment, setting out my decision on those thematic points and giving the reasons for those decisions. Although, I therefore do not address every submission made by counsel in this judgment, I considered all their submissions carefully before determining the applications.

Despite counsel’s approach to the applications, the hearing took more than three full court days.

The thematic approach is different to the approach taken in the statements of case, which largely (but not wholly) take a chronological course. Counsel’s adoption of the thematic approach has also meant that it has only belatedly become clear that, in fact, the precise wording of the statements of case has mattered in some instances (and has further meant that it has not always been easy to distinguish between matters already pleaded and proposed amendments). Indeed, on occasion during the hearing, when the precise wording of the APOC was being considered, Ms Gleyze acknowledged that further “clarification” of the claimant’s case is required.

Because of what I have said, because also the chronological course of the statements of case (the APOC in particular) is interspersed, in some instances, with pleas of causes of action which are, sometimes at least, disconnected from later pleas of the relief sought by the claimant, and because too there are many internal cross-references in the APOC in particular, I am doubtful that the claim, as formulated particularly in the APOC, can be efficiently managed (even recognising, as I do, that the APOC take the form they do not only because the claimant now wishes to advance a multiplicity of claims but also because the POC (not drafted by Ms Gleyze) have, understandably, where possible been used as the framework for the proposed amendments, even though the proposed amendments are substantial in length and substantive in nature). There is force in the submission which Mr Kokelaar made that all this alone might justify the striking out of the POC and the refusal of permission to amend – although I do not believe that a proportionate response would, on this ground, be to then dismiss the claim – but I prefer not to determine the applications on this basis.