KA-2024-BHM-000008 - [2025] EWHC 2093 (KB)

Adequacy of reasons

There has been a very recent Court of Appeal case about adequacy of reasons. The case is Glas SAS (London Branch) v European Topsoho SARL [2025] EWCA Civ 933. Judgment was handed down on 24 July 2025, less than a week before the hearing of this appeal. This was an appeal against a ruling on a short application in the Friday Commercial Court list, but the points made by Falk LJ, who gave the lead judgment, apply equally to appeals in cases such as this.

The Court of Appeal in the Glas SAS case did not set out any new principles. Rather, the Court restated and applied principles that are well-established and have been set out in the leading authorities such as English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd (Practice Note) [2002] EWCA Civ 605; [2002] 1 WLR 2409 at paragraphs 15-21, and Simetra Global Assets v Ikon Finance Ltd [2019] EWCA Civ 1413; [2019] 4 WLR 112 at paragraph 46. In Glas SAS, Falk LJ helpfully summarised the relevant principles at paragraph 32 of her judgment.

As Falk LJ pointed out, in Simetra, Males LJ gave guidance in the context of a challenge based on inadequately reasoned findings of fact. He said:

Without attempting to be comprehensive or prescriptive, not least because it has been said many times that what is required will depend on the nature of the case and that no universal template is possible, I would make four points which appear from the authorities and which are particularly relevant in this case. First, succinctness is as desirable in a judgment as it is in counsel’s submissions, but short judgments must be careful judgments. Second, it is not necessary to deal expressly with every point, but a judge must say enough to show that care has been taken and that the evidence as a whole has been properly considered. Which points need to be dealt with and which can be omitted itself requires an exercise of judgment. Third, the best way to demonstrate the exercise of the necessary care is to make use of ‘the building blocks of the reasoned judicial process’ by identifying the issues which need to be decided, marshalling (however briefly and without needing to recite every point) the evidence which bears on those issues, and giving reasons why the principally relevant evidence is either accepted or rejected as unreliable. Fourth, and in particular, fairness requires that a judge should deal with apparently compelling evidence, where it exists, which is contrary to the conclusion which he proposes to reach and explain why he does not accept it.”