Litigation cases review – November 2025

Requirement to acknowledge service

The defendant's obligations to file an acknowledgment of service or apply to dispute the court's jurisdiction are only triggered by valid service of the claim. There is no meaningful distinction between invalid service based on the use of an incorrect method and invalid service based on a failure to serve in time (Bellway Homes Limited v The Occupiers of Samuel Garside House – read our article).

Invalid service out of the jurisdiction

The claimant failed to effect valid service of his claim form in the USA within the applicable six-month period. He had not filed the mandatory Form N510 with the court nor provided it with the claim form. Permission from the court would be required to serve without filing Form N510. The Court of Appeal held that it was illegitimate to use the general relief from sanctions provision in CPR 3.9 to get around the particular requirements of CPR 7.6(3). In any event, CPR 3.9 could not operate before the claim had validly been commenced (Robertson v Google LLC).

Reasonable steps to serve claim

The date of issue of a claim form is the date on which it is sealed, not the date on which it is sent out by the court office. Here the court office failed to send the sealed claim form to the claimant’s solicitors until after the four-month deadline for service had expired. The claimant failed to apply for an extension of time before the deadline, only seeking relief after receiving the claim form. The Court of Appeal held that the claimant had failed to take all reasonable steps to serve the claim form in time. The court should consider the entire background history and not just events after the claim form had been issued. It was material that the unsealed claim form arrived at the court office on the last day of the limitation period (Bali v 1-2 Couriers Ltd).

Currency of judgment

The Supreme Court held that as a general rule costs awards should be in sterling or in the currency in which the client has been billed and has paid or is liable to pay. An award of costs is not compensation for a party's underlying financial loss but a discretionary remedy. The same approach does not apply to both costs and damages, and the court does not generally ask how a litigant funded an action. Here Nigeria was entitled to a costs order in sterling, as its solicitors had billed in sterling and it had paid those bills in sterling. It was irrelevant that the value of the Nigerian national currency had fallen in value during the relevant period (Process & Industrial Developments Ltd v Federal Republic of Nigeria).

Withdrawing Part 36 offers

The court refused to allow the claimant to withdraw his Part 36 offer. The defendant accepted the offer within the relevant period of 21 days. Accordingly, under CPR 36.9, the court’s permission was required for the claimant to withdraw the offer. This requires a change of circumstances. Here the claimant changed his mind. The court held that this could not amount to a change of circumstances; to hold otherwise would introduce an unacceptable degree of uncertainty into what should be a certain process (Chinda v Cardiff & Vale University Health Board).