KB-2025-001929 - [2025] EWHC 2966 (KB)

First, as framed in the claimants’ skeleton argument:

“to preserve the integrity of these proceedings and the Court’s jurisdictional inquiry, unless and until this Court has determined, pursuant to the Claimant’s application under CPR 11.5, whether the Defendant’s claims are subject to any valid and binding arbitration agreement.”

The Part 11 application has been determined and failed. I add that the claimants argue that this court is “seised [sic] of the dispute first in time” by their first filing. But this fails to recognise that the forum appropriateness is not simply a race to the front. It is a holistic multifactorial assessment informed strongly by the overriding objective. I turn to the second basis, the first having failed.