CL-2023-000396 - [2025] EWHC 1904 (Comm)

This judgment is concerned with two main applications: an application by the Defendant (‘Munich Re’) to strike out the claims against it and/or to have them determined summarily against the Claimant (‘FTL’); and an application by FTL to amend its Claim Form and Particulars of Claim.

There is also an application by FTL to rely upon two additional witness statements. Although Munich Re objected to this, I am unpersuaded that Munich Re has suffered any relevant prejudice in FTL relying upon the additional witness statements. As such, that is an application which I consider should be allowed.

As to the two main applications, FTL’s position is that it should be permitted to amend, and the strike-out application should be dismissed. Munich Re’s position, in contrast, is that FTL’s claims (including those covered by the proposed amendments) are hopeless, in that they have no sustainable legal or factual foundation, and as such ought not to be allowed to be maintained. As Mr Swainston KC, on Munich Re’s behalf, put it in his oral submissions, there are “contract claims without a contract and restitution claims without enrichment, without unjust enrichment”.

The proceedings relate to two sets of claims by FTL against Munich Re: the ‘Services Claim’ and the ‘Transactional Claims’.