JP Morgan Chase Bank & Ors v Springwell Navigation Corp

Permission to appeal is governed by a restrictive test. It may be granted only where the proposed appeal has a real prospect of success or there is another compelling reason for it to be heard. The court may limit the issues and impose conditions. A proposed appeal that requires wholesale review of extensive factual findings, credibility assessments and expert evidence will generally fail that test. Questions concerning the existence and scope of a duty of care may be mixed questions of law and fact, requiring a balanced assessment of the evidence. A case-management order excluding evidence at trial does not remove a party’s standard disclosure obligations under CPR Part 31.6. Post-trial disclosure may be ordered where documents could materially illuminate an issue, even if their likely appellate significance is limited.

Following a lengthy trial between JP Morgan Chase Bank and Springwell Navigation Corporation, the court had delivered two judgments dated 27 May and 25 July 2008. Springwell sought permission to appeal findings concerning advisory duties, breach, causation, negligent misrepresentation and several post-default claims. It also sought further disclosure concerning documents relating to another Chase customer, Pollux, whose action had settled. The court considered whether the proposed appeal satisfied CPR Part 52.3(6) and whether the Pollux documents should be disclosed despite their peripheral relevance and the earlier exclusion of evidence concerning other Hellenic Group customers.

1. Permission to appeal was refused on all proposed grounds. Under CPR Part 52.3(6), the test is restrictive. The court retained a discretion even if a real prospect of success could be shown. The proposed appeal involved a broad challenge to factual findings based on extensive oral, documentary and expert evidence, and was effectively unmanageable.

2. The proposed challenges concerning the existence and scope of advisory duties did not raise legal principles requiring appellate correction. Those issues involved a balanced assessment of mixed questions of law and fact. Even if particular construction points or legal arguments succeeded, Springwell would still have to overcome the trial judge’s independent findings on duty, breach and causation.

3. The misrepresentation challenges likewise depended substantially on factual findings. The court considered that the contractual acknowledgements in the GKO-Linked Notes, the circumstances in which the documents were signed, and the findings on inducement gave the proposed appeals no realistic prospect of success.

4. The proposed appeals concerning the payment, damages and account claims also depended on findings about contractual construction, good faith, gross negligence, causation and tax. The court found no sufficient prospect of appellate success and no other compelling reason to grant permission.

5. Springwell’s application for disclosure of the Pollux Documentation was granted. The court was not required at that stage to decide whether the Court of Appeal would admit fresh evidence. The earlier case-management order did not relieve Chase of its standard disclosure obligations under CPR Part 31.6. Although the documents were of highly peripheral relevance and unlikely to alter the appellate position, they might illuminate Chase’s alleged policy concerning signed DDCS Letters. Disclosure would promote transparency before any further appellate application.

The judgment concerned applications made after the court’s judgments of 27 May and 25 July 2008. Permission to appeal was refused. The Court of Appeal’s earlier judgment of 20 December 2005 is referred to only in relation to a prior case-management order concerning evidence about other Hellenic Group customers.