The Dekagram: 19th October 2026

A treat this week for those of our readers who are fans of French art and German philosophy – surely the overwhelming majority? – as Thomas Yarrow considers when a claim is not a claim. Meanwhile Kerry Nicholson examines when relief from sanctions might not be ordered, and finds that Formula 1 motorsport is a murky world.

Ceci n’est pas une claim? Getting the paperwork right

Practitioners looking for guidance on civil procedure seldom turn to the Administrative Court. And yet two recent judgments contain some careful recent analysis of the rules governing commencement of proceedings, and merit at least a sideways glance. Both cases reached the court by roundabout routes. Ijaz v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2026] EWHC 1810 (Admin) was a statutory appeal from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. R (Cakebread-Snow) v County Court at Durham [2026] EWHC 1758 (Admin) arrived from the Court of Appeal.

In Cakebread-Snow, a litigant in person handed in an N1 claim form together with 583 pages of applications and evidence, and asked for the whole package to be issued as the claim. The court office referred the papers to a judge instead. In Ijaz, a solicitor filed an N161 appellant’s notice on the last day for appealing but attached no grounds. The grounds arrived more than four months later.

The common theme is one of Kantian dualism, the matching of the phenomenal and noumenal realms; is a document that says it is, and appears to be, a claim or an appeal actually such a thing? Both judges engaged with these deep existential questions and came, broadly, to the same conclusions.

In Ijaz Bates DHCJ started from the obvious case: a blank N161, or one showing only the parties’ names and addresses, could not sensibly be said to start an appeal. At the very least, the notice must identify the decision under appeal. He then added grounds of appeal to that irreducible core, because without them the respondent cannot understand “the essential basis” of the challenge. His test is functional. A notice is not valid simply because it exists. It is valid because it tells the other side what case it has to meet.

Collins Rice J in Cakebread-Snow approached N1 claim forms in a similar way. Court staff have no general discretion to refuse to issue a claim. They must, however, apply a “degree of scrutiny” to decide whether what they have been given is an issuable claim at all. She drew on Tuckey LJ’s observation in the two-decade old Court of Appeal case Barnes v St Helens MBC [2007] 1 WLR 879: a document that names no parties or contains no claim is not “anything which could properly be described as a claim form”; in its essence, the same reasoning Bates DHCJ applied to the blank N161 in Ijaz.

Both judges also distinguished essential defects which rendered the document null, from ancillary ones, for instance payment of a court fee, which did not. Collins Rice J in Cakebread-Snow then took the ontological enquiry further to ask whether even if a collection of documents calling itself a claim was not in fact a claim, might it nonetheless somewhere contain a claim within its viscera, in which case the kernel should be issued. For her, the N1 and the particulars of claim passed at this second stage.

Both judgments give real attention to what the court office does. In Ijaz, the appeal had been brought in time even without grounds, because the Birmingham office had accepted and issued the notice. In Cakebread-Snow, the office acted lawfully in declining to issue on the spot and in consulting a judge under CPR 3.2. The judge also limited Practice Direction 3A para 2.1 to doubts about the merits, so that it does not cover questions of form.

The practical result is the same in both cases. Acceptance by the court office or receipt of the claim protects the party on time limits: through acceptance in Ijaz and through PD 7A para 6.1 in Cakebread-Snow. It does not cure the underlying defect. Ms Ijaz still needed the court’s permission to rely on her late grounds. She never applied for it, and so her appeal had to be dismissed. Both courts also put responsibility firmly on the litigant.

The lesson for practitioners is consistent across both cases. The court will read documents generously but by their substance, and it expects the substance to be present from the start.

About the Author

Before coming to the Bar, Thomas worked as a Civil Servant, including as a policy advisor at the Brexit Department. His former experience gives him an encyclopaedic knowledge of legislation, treaties and international conventions in the field of Private International Law, which he has applied to his cross-border practice, building a reputation as a go-to barrister for complex questions of jurisdiction and applicable law. He wrote the relevant chapter on such in the latest edition of the leading practitioner textbook, Saggerson on Travel Law and Litigation. His travel practice spans cross-border personal injury, commercial disputes and consumer protection. He is listed in the Legal 500 as a Rising Star in the administrative law and human rights and personal injury categories, and as a leading junior in the law relating to sanctions. He is described by the Legal 500 as being ‘very sharp, with fantastic attention to detail’, and with ‘excellent knowledge of public law and human rights, with experience in a wide range of areas, from sanctions to cutting edge issues such as state use of facial recognition’.

Relief from sanctions and late amendments: Lessons from SCRP Fund I Finance SARL v Robson

The judgment in SCRP Fund I Finance SARL v Robson [2026] EWHC 2477 (Comm) is a useful example of the court applying two related but separate discretions in the same hearing, with opposite results. The claimant got an extension of time to rely on a draft amended pleading served 18 days late in an application to amend. But permission to make the amendments in that pleading was refused. The judge was explicit that the two applications overlap in their legal considerations but turn on significantly different facts.

Background

The claim concerned alleged breaches of warranty in a share purchase agreement dated 28 September 2022 (the SPA). The SPA was for the management buyout of a group of companies, and the buyer’s rights had been assigned to the claimant, which funded the buyout. The claim was issued on 1 October 2024 and was confined to one company in the group. The defendants pleaded an equitable set-off based on the earn-out seller protections in the SPA. Their Defence said further particulars would follow disclosure. A 10-day trial was fixed to start on 26 October 2026.

The defendants served Voluntary Further Particulars on 7 May 2026. On 12 May 2026 the court ordered the claimant to serve Points of Reply by 22 May 2026. The same order recorded that, save for exceptional circumstances, the extension it granted for witness statements would be the final one. The claimant’s Response, however, introduced entirely new allegations that incentives had been improperly paid, in other words bribes. The defendants applied to strike these out. The claimant conceded that the new breaches belonged in the Particulars of Claim and said it would apply to amend.

The procedural history that followed was poor:

• The application to amend was issued one day late, on 18 June 2026. It pleaded fraudulent misrepresentation against the first defendant for the first time.
• At the hearing on 29 June 2026, the claimant accepted that the October trial would have to be vacated if permission were granted. The court ordered Version 2 of the draft, with tracked changes, by 30 July 2026. That timetable took account of counsel’s availability, including leading counsel for the defendants being away throughout August.
• Version 2 was served on time but without tracked changes.
• Version 3 followed on 17 August 2026, 18 days late, because the claimant’s leading counsel had been on holiday.
• Version 3 was, as the claimant accepted, substantially different. It recast the claim as fraudulent misrepresentation made to the claimant in its capacity as lender, not merely as assignee of the buyer.

Relief from sanctions: the extension application

The judge treated the request for more time as an exercise of the court’s power under CPR 3.1(2)(a), applying the three-stage test in Denton: how serious or significant the breach was, whether there was a good reason for it, and all the circumstances.

Stage one: seriousness. During the hearing, leading counsel for the claimant accepted that the 18-day delay was “probably on the wrong side of the line”, given the compressed timetable. The judge said she would have found the breach significant and serious even without that concession (at [36]).

Stage two: good reason. The claimant was equivocal on this point. The judge rejected both reasons offered (at [38]):

• Counsel’s holiday was not a good reason, because the claimant must have known about it before the dates were fixed on 29 June 2026.
• The fact that the fraud allegations emerged late, after the claimant’s solicitors found material during disclosure review, was not a good reason either.

Stage three: all the circumstances. Relief was nonetheless granted. The judge found that refusing to let the claimant rely on Version 3 would cause it significantly more prejudice. Several factors weighed in her decision (at [39]):

• Although time was short, the defendants had had some opportunity to consider and respond to the amendment.
• Even if Version 3 had been served on time on 30 July 2026, defending counsel would have had very little time to review it before the hearing without interrupting his holiday.

The balance of prejudice therefore favoured extending time so that the claimant could argue its application on Version 3 (at [40]). The extension was granted only so the court could consider the pleading. It decided nothing about the merits of the amendment.

Very late amendments: the governing principles

The claimant accepted that its application to amend was “very late”. The judge set out a summary of the CPR 17 principles, which counsel largely agreed (at [26] and [28]):

• After service, Particulars of Claim can only be amended with the court’s permission. Permission will not be granted for an amendment with no real prospect of success (citing Groveholt Ltd v Hughes).
• The court must balance justice between the parties, with the overriding objective at the centre. That includes injustice to the applicant if permission is refused, injustice to the opponent if it is granted, and injustice to other litigants.
• An amendment is “very late” where the trial date has been fixed and would be lost. Both the parties and litigants generally have a legitimate expectation that trial fixtures will be kept.
• Lateness is relative, not absolute. It depends on the nature of the amendment, the quality of the explanation for its timing, and the consequences in wasted and consequential work.
• It is not enough to show that the only prejudice is costs. Costs may not be adequate compensation, and a good explanation for delay is expected.
• The authorities differ on whether a good reason for delay is mandatory (CIP Properties v Galliford Try) or is one factor in striking a fair balance (Vilica v Xstrata).
• Where the applicant’s own conduct caused the delay, the prejudice it would suffer from refusal counts for significantly less.
• A heavy burden lies on the party seeking a very late amendment to show the strength of its new case and why justice requires that it be allowed to pursue it.
• If the amendment would mean adjourning the trial, that may be an overwhelming reason to refuse it (citing Nesbit Law Group v Acasta, Quah Sy-Ling v Goldman Sachs and Pearce v East & North Hertfordshire NHS Trust).

Applying the principles: the fraud case

Realistic prospect versus a strong case. Whether a warranty can also found a misrepresentation claim, especially where there is an entire agreement clause, is contested in first-instance authority. The claimant relied on Invertec and Belfairs, and the defendants on Sycamore Bidco and Idemitsu Kosan. The judge declined to resolve that conflict. She assumed the claimant had a realistic prospect of success in law if it could prove its facts, while stressing that a realistic prospect is a necessary but not sufficient condition for permission (at [30]–[33]).

What mattered was the strength of the case, and on the evidence it was found wanting:

• The judge accepted that some of the material raised questions about possible fraud. But there were other explanations for the payments, and for the wording of correspondence that might sound suspicious (at [51]).
• There was not a single piece of evidence that the payments to the alleged recipients were excessive or lacked a legitimate business reason. Numerous accountants had examined the accounts during due diligence and raised no concerns (at [52]).
• As to the claim that travel and hotel costs for Formula One events were excessive, there was no evidence of what flights to, or hotels in, Abu Dhabi actually cost (at [53]).
• The defendants’ evidence, including contemporaneous WhatsApp messages and emails and material about sponsorship of the Formula One in Schools programme, contradicted the claimant’s witness on important points (at [44]–[47] and [50]).
• The claimant faced further difficulties on reliance. Some of the alleged misrepresentations appeared to have come from members of the buyer’s own management buyout team, whose knowledge SPA clauses would attribute to the buyer (at [55]).

The judge concluded that, although there was a realistic prospect of success, she was “wholly unpersuaded” that this was a strong case (at [56]).

Delay and its explanation. More significantly, the judge said she would have refused permission anyway, whatever the strength of the claim (at [57]). The claimant argued that the late particulars from the defendants had triggered wider document searches, which uncovered the new evidence. The court accepted that the documents were found through searches wider than the Disclosure Review Document required. It did not accept that the failure to run those searches earlier could in any way be blamed on the defendants (at [58]–[59]). Several points drove that conclusion:

• It is for the claimant to plead and prove its case. A defendant could do the bare minimum and simply put the claimant to proof (at [59] and [61]).
• The claimant held most, if not all, of the relevant documentation. The court accepted that disclosure was huge, at over 1.1 million documents (at [60] and [62]).
• The original Defence of November 2024 already set out the defendants’ core points. The further particulars did not change the basis of the defendants’ case (at [62]–[63]).
• Finding the alleged bribery evidence did not show that the defendants had hidden anything. It showed only that the claimant had not looked outside the agreed disclosure parameters earlier (at [64]).

The judge also noted a possible Henderson v Henderson abuse objection if the claimant tried to bring the new allegations as a separate claim (at [34]).

Practical takeaways

1. Relief can be granted even where the breach is serious and there is no good reason. The third Denton stage did real work here. Where the opponent has been able to respond and the late document’s timing makes little practical difference, the balance of prejudice can still favor relief (at [39]–[40]). Practitioners should not, however, treat this as a safety net.
2. Counsel’s holiday is not a good reason if it was foreseeable. If availability problems are known when a timetable is set, raise them then. They will not excuse a later breach (at [38]).
3. Late discovery of evidence is not, in itself, a good reason. That applies both to relief from sanctions (at [38]) and to justifying a very late amendment (at [58]–[64]). A party that holds the documents is expected to search them properly, and the scope of an agreed Disclosure Review Document does not limit its own investigative duties.
4. Do not blame your opponent’s pleading for your own delay. Further particulars that elaborate a case already pleaded, rather than changing it, will not justify an amendment that comes much later (at [63]).
5. A realistic prospect of success is only the threshold. A very late amendment needs a demonstrably strong case, especially for fraud, where the court will look closely at innocent explanations and at gaps in the evidence (at [33] and [51]–[56]).
6. Losing a trial date counts heavily against permission. The claimant’s concession that the trial would have to be vacated put the application squarely in “very late” territory, with an adjournment potentially an overwhelming reason to refuse (at [16] and [28]).
7. Repeated non-compliance damages credibility. A one-day-late application, a version without the tracked changes the court had ordered, and a substantially rewritten pleading served 18 days late set the background against which the court weighed the claimant’s request for indulgence (at [14]–[19]).
8. Check contractual notice provisions at the outset. A notice that does not identify the specific breaches and losses within the contractual period cannot be stretched later to support new heads of claim (at [70]).
9. Raising fraud to get round limitation will be scrutinised. The defendants argued that the fraudulent misrepresentation claim appeared designed to avoid the SPA’s limitation provisions (at [15]). The SPA disapplied its contractual limitations in cases of fraud, which explains the incentive (clause 8.8, quoted at [24]). Courts are alert to this tactic, particularly when fraud appears for the first time shortly before trial.

About the Author

Kerry Nicholson takes instructions across all of chambers’ core areas. Prior to joining Deka chambers Kerry worked for the Government Legal Department working across a variety of departments in both litigation and advisory roles. She is now enjoys working within the team on travel related and other claims.