CL-2018-000297, CL-2018-000404, CL-2018-000590, - [2025] EWHC 2979 (Comm)

Fecha: 14-Nov-2025

Conclusions

Other Compelling Reason?

49.

Although it was not pressed in oral argument, the skeleton argument on behalf of SKAT for the judgment hearing also invited consideration of whether permission to appeal should be granted, even in the absence of a realistic prospect of success, pursuant to CPR 52.6(1)(b). That rule allows for permission to appeal on the alternative ground that there is some compelling reason, other than the existence of a realistic prospect of success, why an appeal should be heard. SKAT submitted that the grant of permission on that ground “may be appropriate where it is in the public interest for an issue to be considered by the Court of Appeal, such as the importance of providing remedies for alleged high value, international fraud on a friendly foreign state”.

50.

The Shah Ds and the DWF Ds responded, robustly, that:

(i)

per the DWF Ds, SKAT’s submission was “extraordinary”, akin almost to a form of political pressure, since it proposed that absent realistic reason now for saying that SKAT had suffered any of the actionable wrongs it alleged at trial, it should be allowed to pursue an appeal because “[it] is an aggrieved state … [that] is ‘friendly’ and alleges fraud”;

(ii)

per the Shah Ds, the case “was and has remained pleaded that SKAT [brought] this claim in a private capacity … . … it would be a strange function for this Court to decide that all claims brought by SKAT in its private capacity had failed and then grant it permission to appeal when there are no substantive grounds to do so … out of a desire to fashion a remedy apparently unavailable to private litigants … because the losing party is a friendly state (and thus … not a private party at all)”.

51.

I would assume in SKAT’s favour that it did not intend to apply or suggest political pressure. However, I have sympathy with the DWF Ds’ submission that for SKAT to put forward, as it did, that its status as, in truth, the Kingdom of Denmark (acting by its tax authority), a “friendly foreign state”, should result in special treatment on permission to appeal, has something of that appearance. On the substance of the point, I agreed with both responsive submissions that the size and international nature of the fraud SKAT alleged is no reason, let alone a compelling reason, why an appeal should be entertained in the absence of a realistic prospect of success.