Secretary Of State For Trade and Industry v Eastaway

Whether disqualification proceedings have taken an unreasonable time requires an overall assessment of the reasonableness of their length. There is no arithmetical time limit. The court must identify the relevant periods, including delay attributable to the respondent, delay caused by co-respondents, and periods reasonably spent awaiting related criminal proceedings. Delay caused by the applicant’s own procedural steps may properly be attributed to him. Waiting for a criminal verdict can be a proper step for the state and need not count against it, although it may form part of the total period considered. An appellate court may intervene if the correct questions were not asked or the factual answers do not support the conclusion. Permission to appeal was refused.

The Secretary of State commenced proceedings under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 against Mr Eastaway and four other former directors of the Blackspur Group. The proceedings followed the companies’ entry into administrative receivership and an alleged deficiency of approximately £34 million.

Mr Eastaway challenged the proceedings on the basis that their length infringed his Article 6 right to a hearing within a reasonable time. The Vice-Chancellor rejected that argument and also held that an undertaking given by Mr Eastaway prevented him from pursuing the delay issue in the disqualification proceedings. Mr Eastaway sought permission to appeal. The central question was whether there was a realistic prospect of overturning the Vice-Chancellor’s assessment of the delay.

1. Permission refused. The court held that there was no realistic prospect of successfully challenging the Vice-Chancellor’s conclusion that the proceedings had not exceeded a reasonable time.
2. The applicable approach was an overall assessment of the reasonableness of the length of the proceedings, as stated in EDC v United Kingdom [1998] BCC 370. Neither that decision nor the related European materials prescribed an arithmetical time limit.
3. Delay attributable to the applicant should be left out of account when assessing whether the reasonable time requirement has been exceeded. Conversely, the state was not necessarily responsible for periods during which it reasonably awaited the outcome of related criminal proceedings. Waiting for a verdict could be a proper step before continuing the disqualification proceedings.
4. The period occupied by a co-respondent’s appeal was not necessarily attributable to Mr Eastaway, but it was reasonable for the Secretary of State to await its outcome because success might have affected whether it remained appropriate to continue against Mr Eastaway.
5. The court accepted that the Vice-Chancellor might have expressed the attribution of some periods too broadly. That did not undermine the result, because the relevant periods were reasonably treated as state waiting time or were caused by Mr Eastaway’s own applications, negotiations and judicial review proceedings.
6. The existence of a two-year period for initiating disqualification proceedings did not create a general limit governing the later conduct of each case. The assessment remained fact-sensitive. Since the delay issue could not realistically succeed, it was unnecessary to determine whether the undertaking independently barred the appeal or whether the court should release Mr Eastaway from it.

The application was refused with costs, subject to detailed assessment.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Permission to appeal from the Vice-Chancellor’s judgment of 15 February 2001 was refused.
• High Court, Chancery Division: The Vice-Chancellor rejected the application to strike out the disqualification proceedings and held that there had been no breach of Article 6.
• Queen’s Bench Division: Mr Justice Collins and Mr Justice Sullivan refused permission to bring judicial review proceedings. Lord Justice Buxton refused permission to appeal from that refusal.