PT-2022-BRS-000100 - [2025] EWHC 2743 (Ch)

First of all, in my judgment, the application was not premature. The deal had been done as long ago as June 2024, when the Part 36 offer had been accepted. The claimant did not have to accept the offer, but he chose to do so, many months after it had been made, and rather out of the blue. The defendants’ application to enforce that acceptance was issued in April 2025 This was some 10 months later, when, despite long (and no doubt expensive, and emotionally wearing) correspondence between the parties, there were still no completely agreed settlement documents to be signed. Frankly, in these circumstances it ill behoves the claimant now to say in effect that there was no sufficient agreement to justify an application to the court to enforce that acceptance. The point of Part 36 is to create a settlement of existing litigation, not to create a springboard for further, satellite litigation. In my view, this acceptance did create an enforceable agreement, and it is time that it was enforced.