HT-2019-CDF-000012 - [2025] EWHC 1315 (TCC)

CPR rule 3.4 provides in part:

“(2)

The court may strike out a statement of case if it appears to the court—

(a)

that the statement of case discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing … the claim;

…

(c)

that there has been a failure to comply with a rule, practice direction or court order.”

CPR Part 3 is supplemented by Practice Direction 3A, which provides in part:

“1.2

The following are examples of cases where the court may conclude that particulars of claim (whether contained in a claim form or filed separately) fall within rule 3.4(2)(a):

(1)

those which set out no facts indicating what the claim is about, for example ‘Money owed £5000’,

(2)

those which are incoherent and make no sense,

(3)

those which contain a coherent set of facts but those facts, even if true, do not disclose any legally recognisable claim against the defendant.

…

1.5

A party may believe they can show without a trial that an opponent’s case has no real prospect of success on the facts, or that the case is bound to succeed or fail, as the case may be, because of a point of law (including the interpretation of a document). In such a case the party concerned may make an application under rule 3.4 or apply for summary judgment under Part 24 (or both) as they think appropriate.”

It is common ground that, when considering an application advanced on the basis of r. 3.4(2)(a), the court ought to assume that the facts relied on by the claimant are true. But those, of course, are the pleaded facts; note para 1.2 of the Practice Direction, as well as the words of the rule itself. If the court thinks that the failure of the statement of case to set out necessary facts can be remedied by amendment, and that to permit an amendment is a more proportionate response than an order for strike-out, it has a discretion to take the former course.