TC09602 - [2025] UKFTT 00930 (TC)

Mr Gill was seriously ill; his daughter had confirmed he would be unable to attend. It was reasonable to infer that the position would be the same if the hearing was relisted. Thus, this was not a case where an adjournment would allow Mr Gill to participate.

If the hearing were to be adjourned to allow Mr Gill the opportunity to instruct a different firm, it was unknown whether Mr Gill would do so.

If Mr Gill did not do so, directing an adjournment would simply cause further delay.

The underlying transactions to which the PLN related took place between periods 01/15 and 06/19, and so between ten and six years previously.

The hearing of the reinstatement application had already been postponed twice previously.

Judge Poole had allowed TMS and Mr Gill to file witness evidence after the original time limit in the Tribunal’s directions but had also warned that it was “extremely unlikely that any further postponements will be granted unless any application is supported by written medical evidence”. Although I was considering an adjournment for a different reason, it was also the case that no new medical evidence had been provided.

Even if Mr Gill did instruct a new representative who put forward evidence and submissions about the role and responsibility of TMS for the compliance failure, it is clear from Katib that in most cases “failings by a litigant’s advisers should be regarded as failings of the litigant. I discuss Katib further later in this judgment, including whether Mr Gill’s case could be distinguished on the basis of his serious health conditions at the relevant time, about which I already had extensive evidence.