CA-2025-001079 & CA-2025-002078 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1262

The respondent (“Mr Robertson”) failed to effect valid service of his claim form on the appellant (“Google”) in the USA within the applicable period of 6 months. The issue before Deputy District Judge Grout, as he then was (“the judge”), was the identity of the rule or series of rules within the CPR which governed the court’s consideration of whether or not to provide Mr Robertson with a way out of his difficulties. But for the authorities, it is apparent that the judge considered that the relevant rule was r.7.6(3) (extending time for service of a claim form), and that Mr Robertson could not bring himself within that rule. But the judge was persuaded that the authorities indicated that r.7.6(3) did not apply in these circumstances, and that the relevant test was the broader test for relief from sanctions under r.3.9, which the judge then granted. The primary issue raised by Google’s appeal is whether he was right to take that course.

There is a cross-appeal, raised on behalf of Mr Robertson, arising out of the costs order made by the judge. The judge granted Mr Robertson relief from sanctions and, in accordance with the usual approach, ordered him to pay the costs of that application. He seeks to appeal that costs order on the basis that some, perhaps a significant amount, of the costs arose in relation to a separate challenge by Google to the court’s jurisdiction to hear some of the claims, a challenge which they ultimately lost. On his behalf, Mr Boch submitted that there was no causal connection between that jurisdiction issue and the debate about service and relief from sanctions, and that that should have been reflected in the judge’s costs order.