BL-2021-002235 - [2025] EWHC 2367 (Ch)

The respondent had asked that these applications be dealt with on paper only, that is, without having to attend court. After consideration of the relevant documents, I declined to take that course. I judged that each of these applications should be dealt with in open court at the beginning of the hearing that was already listed between the parties on 5 September 2025.

In relation to the application of 13 August 2025, there was no good reason for having a hearing in the middle of the vacation, when the parties and their lawyers (to say nothing of the judge) would probably be enjoying their summer holidays. There was nothing about the application that required it to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. In relation to the application of 4 September 2025, the next listed hearing between the parties was to take place on the following day, and it made no sense to try and deal with the matter beforehand. There was no time, for example, for the respondent to that application (that is, the applicant in the contempt application) to consider and respond to the respondent’s new application.

Accordingly, at the beginning of the hearing on 5 September 2025, I began by considering the respondent’s two applications. As I have already said, the respondent was not present in court to make either of them. I could therefore have dismissed them both simply on the basis that the respondent (or any representative of his) was not there to make them when they were listed to be heard. Instead, I did not do so, and leading counsel for the applicant in the contempt application addressed me on them. I then gave an extempore judgment dismissing both applications on their merits.