Grenda Investments Ltd v Philip Barton
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Picken |
| Judgment Date | 20 September 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 2372 (Comm) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CL-2014-000649 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court) |
| Date | 20 September 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 2372 (Comm)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
COMMERCIAL COURT
Royal Courts of Justice, Rolls Building
Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1NL
Mr Justice Picken
Case No: CL-2014-000649
David Lord QC, Adam Chichester-Clark (instructed by Richard Slade & Company PLC) for the Claimant
Neil Hext QC instructed for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 19 th and 20 th September 2017
Mr Justice Picken Wednesday, 20th September 2017
Ruling by Mr Justice Picken
I have to deal now with the question of costs, both of the application by Mr Barton to strike out the proceedings as representing an abuse of process and of Grenda's application for summary judgment.
The strike-out application
I propose to deal with the first of those first. That is an application which was based exclusively on an invitation to the Court to infer from the inactivity in the proceedings from the end of 2015 until the autumn of 2016 that a decision was made by Grenda (and Mr Ruhan) not to pursue proceedings.
I have dealt in my judgment earlier with the merits of that, and I have rejected the invitation to me to make that inference. If that application stood alone, the ordinary and usual position would be that the party who made it, having failed, should have to pay the costs of the application incurred by the opposite party, here Grenda.
Mr Hext submits that I should adopt a different approach to that and should, instead, make an order for 'costs in case' on the basis that the factual territory underlying the suggested inference which gave rise to the application for striking out will be territory which will be gone over at trial, when considering the allegation that the non-pursuit agreement, said by Mr Barton to be entered into, was entered into in November 2015, that non-pursuit agreement arising as a substantive defence to the claim,
I am not persuaded by Mr Hext's submission. It seems to me that the position is quite straightforward, and it is the one I have described which is that an application was made to strike out the proceedings, it failed and, as a consequence, the costs should be borne by the party who made it, namely Mr Barton.
The fact that the non-pursuit agreement will be explored at trial is interesting, but by no means conclusive in circumstances where the abuse argument will not be revisited at trial. It is that abuse argument which, therefore, has now run its course, never to start again and, in those circumstances, I consider that the only appropriate order, exercising my discretion, is to require Mr Barton to pay the costs of that application, and that is what I order.
The summary judgment application
Turning now to the summary judgment application, the position here is a little bit more nuanced. I have considerable sympathy with Mr Lord's submission that it took until Mr Barton's third witness statement, served in mid-June this year, for Mr Barton to give the level of particularisation concerning the set-off agreement which ought to have been given a lot earlier.
I am not going to repeat everything I have said so far, but it is striking that, when Grenda asked for further information of the Defence concerning the allegation that an agreement was entered into, the information which came forward referred to an agreement entered into at 55 Baker Street, London, in March 2014 yet in...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Richardson-Ruhan v Ruhan
...CTLC 49. Grenda Investments Ltd v Barton[2017] EWHC 2371 (Comm) (unreported, 20 September 2017). Grenda Investments Ltd v Barton[2017] EWHC 2372 (Comm) (unreported, 20 September 2017). H (a minor) (adoption: non-patrial), Re [1982] Fam 121, [1982] 3 WLR 50, [1982] 3 All ER 84. Henderson v H......