31/1/24
POTANINA v PONTANIN [2024] UKSC 3
The court confirmed that the usual procedure for the hearing of an application to set aside an order obtained without notice is a re-hearing on the merits (although a minority held that the position should be different in relation to certain orders made in family proceedings).
18/1/24
COMMISSION RECOVERY LTD v MARKS & CLERK LLP [2024] EWCA Civ 9
The court dismissed an application under CPR r.19.8(2) for an order preventing the claimant from acting as a representative for others with the same interest in a claim to recover commissions alleged to have been received in breach of fiduciary duty by the defendant from third parties to whom the defendant referred clients. Considers principles to be applied in permitting representative claims [29] including those seeking monetary relief which require individual assessment where only some issues can be dealt with on a representative basis (the so-called bifurcated approach). The question whether the existence, scope and breach of fiduciary duty was established by the existence of a contract on the defendant’s standard terms and receipt of commission, or turned on other facts, was common to all cases. The need for individual assessment of some issues such as limitation, did not make a representative claim on other issues inappropriate even if it would not fully resolve the question of liability. Nor was it necessary for the claimant to plead an individual claim for each member of the class for the common issues to be determined.