Debarment: shortcut to judgment or simply a trial management tool? Mary Young reports
- Debarment can be used to accelerate determination of a claim at a lower cost to the claimant, and it can be extremely effective. But in some circumstances, the issues relating to the extent of a defendant’s participation in a trial may be more nuanced.
- Even where a defendant has been debarred, residual discretion and the exercise of the court’s judicial function tend to lead to a limited degree of participation being allowed by the court.
‘A debarring order is an important sanction available to the court in the exercise of its case management powers, and an important method of ensuring that the court’s case management orders are respected.’ So summarised Mr Edwin Johnson KC, sitting as a deputy judge in Times Travel (UK) Ltd v Pakistan International Airlines Corp [2019] EWHC 3732 (Ch).
Obtaining an unless order with a view to debarring a defendant from defending the claim is a tactic employed, when available, to try to accelerate determination of
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