Cardiorentis AG v Iqvia Ltd & Anor

Permission to amend a served statement of case depends on the overriding objective and the balance between prejudice to the applicant, the opposing party and other litigants. The court should not conduct a mini-trial, but must be satisfied that the amended case has a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success. An amendment supplying further particulars of an existing contractual case is not objectionable merely because the earlier pleading was incomplete or differently formulated. Reliance is not an essential element of a claim for breach of express or implied contractual terms, although knowledge and likely decisions may be relevant to causation or contributory negligence. The court may grant permission while requiring targeted further information.

The parties attended a case management conference in two consolidated proceedings. Cardiorentis claimed damages for alleged breaches of contractual duties concerning the conduct and reporting of a clinical trial. IQVIA also claimed unpaid invoices, against which Cardiorentis relied on set-off.

Cardiorentis sought permission to amend paragraphs 26A and 29 of its Particulars of Claim to plead further details concerning protocol-deviation listings and spreadsheets. IQVIA objected on the grounds that the earlier case had been materially wrong, the amended case was inherently implausible, and the pleading failed to particularise reliance. The central issue was whether permission to amend should be granted and, if so, on what terms.

1. Permission granted. The amendments to paragraphs 26A and 29 were permitted, subject to further information identifying the individuals said to possess the relevant knowledge and explaining how they would probably have acted. IQVIA was entitled to the costs of and occasioned by the amendments.
2. The governing approach was that stated in Slater & Gordon v Watchstone [2019] EWHC 2371: the court must apply the overriding objective and balance the injustice of refusing the amendment against the injustice of allowing it. The disputed pleading was coherent and reasonably arguable.
3. The merits threshold was a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success. The court could reject a factual case that was implausible, self-contradictory or unsupported by contemporaneous documents, applying principles having equal force to an amendment application and summary judgment. It was not appropriate to conduct a mini-trial.
4. The proposed amendments were essentially further particulars of the existing contractual case and did not introduce a new cause of action. Whether the previous pleading was materially wrong, or why the case had originally been pleaded differently, was not a proper reason to refuse amendment.
5. Reliance was not an essential element of the pleaded cause of action, which was based on alleged breaches of express and implied contractual terms. Knowledge and likely decisions could be relevant to causation and contributory negligence, but did not make the disputed paragraphs defective for want of reliance particulars.

The judgment was given at first instance on an amendment application during a case management conference in consolidated proceedings. No lower-court judgment or appeal decision is stated.