[2025] EWHC 2035 (Comm)

AXA elected to bring the Application prior to serving its Defence. The Application is supported by two witness statements of Daniel Richard Abbey (“Mr Abbey”), a solicitor and partner in DAC Beachcroft Claims Limited (“DAC”), dated 20 March 2025 and 28 May 2025. In broad terms AXA: (i) challenged the primary claim under the Policy on the grounds that it was statute barred under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 because the 6 year limitation period ran from the date of the Fire on 7 February 2018 and became time-barred from February 2024; (ii) said the other claims were all either time-barred or had no real prospect of success and (iii) that in any event Mr Tregunno could have no claim because he was not named on the Policy.

The Application is opposed by the witness statement of Mr Tregunno dated 23 April 2025. Although he challenged in a broad sense the relevance of Mr Abbey’s evidence, Mr Tregunno accepted that the Application largely turns on documents before the Court. His short witness statement was directed principally to clarifying the position with the County Court judgments and the status of Mode.

I have been considerably assisted by the sequential nature in which the Skeleton Arguments have been exchanged. Although the grounds of opposition to the Application were initially wide-ranging, by the time of the hearing before me, it was clear that many of the pleaded issues were no longer being pursued by Mode and Mr Tregunno.

Thus, although not reflected in any draft amended pleading, in his Skeleton Argument Mr Chapman KC (whose name does not appear on the Particulars of Claim) accepted that:

I will deal with the proper disposal of these abandoned claims at the end of this Judgment.

In light of this, although Counsels’ respective formulations of them slightly differed, the scope of the issues before me was much narrower and requires me to determine: