HT-2024-000316 - [2025] EWHC 434 (TCC)

If and to the extent that, contrary to BDW’s primary case, section 132 does not permit an information order to be made against R2-4 and any of the requested information or documents do not fall within the scope of an information order that can be made against ACL (because they are not within ACL’s possession or control), BDW seeks the same information and documents on either or both of the following grounds: (a) section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981; (b) the inherent jurisdiction of the court to make ancillary orders, including orders for the provision of documents and information, to ensure the effectiveness of its orders.

Section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 provides:

“(1)

The High Court may by order (whether interlocutory or final) grant an injunction or appoint a receiver in all cases in which it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so.”

As for the inherent jurisdiction of the court, in Quay House Admirals Way Land Ltd v Rockwell Properties Ltd [2022] EWHC 545 (Ch), Mr Simon Gleeson, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, considered the submission that the court’s inherent power to cancel or discharge inhibitions had been supplanted by section 57 of the Land Registration Act 1925, which conferred a similar statutory power, and that when the Land Registration Act 2002 did not continue the statutory power, the inherent power did not revive. The deputy judge said:

“84.

I do not think that this is correct. I think the position is correctly stated in the commentary to s.19(1) [of the Senior Courts Act 1981] in the White Book (at para 9A-67), which observes that ‘The court may execute its inherent jurisdiction even in respect of matters which are regulated by statute’, citing Willis v Earl Beauchamp (1886) 11 PD 59 at 63 per Bowen L.J. It is therefore entirely clear that the court’s inherent jurisdiction can exist alongside a statutory jurisdiction, and that the creation of a statutory jurisdiction does not necessarily exclude the court’s inherent jurisdiction.

85.

Applying this approach to the 2002 Act, I cannot see any provision of it which conveys with the necessary clarity the idea that the inherent jurisdiction of the court is somehow displaced by the creation of an extrajudicial mechanism for application to the registrar directly for the amendment of the register. Consequently, I am satisfied that the inherent jurisdiction of the court to order the register to be amended in the way that the claimants seek remains intact, and has not been extinguished by the 2002 Act.”

There is a fair amount of learning and authority on both section 37(1) and the inherent power of the court. I was not referred to very much of it. Perhaps that does not matter greatly. Even if (which I doubt) the court has power to make the suggested orders against R2-4 under either section 37(1) or the inherent jurisdiction, I can see no good reason for exercising the power. The entire exercise in the present case relates solely to the remedy provided in section 130 of the 2022 Act; there is no general power to impose on one person the liabilities of another person just because it seems desirable or convenient to do so. Section 132 represents Parliament’s ancillary provision to secure the efficacy of section 130. Even if technically it could, I do not think that the court should disregard the limits placed on the power to make information orders because it thinks that some wider power than that actually provided for would be more convenient.