Skatteforvaltningen v Solo Capital Partners LLP & Ors

Permission to appeal should be refused where the proposed grounds disclose no more than a fanciful prospect of success. Findings based on the evidence as a whole, particularly findings of fact concerning representation, knowledge and inducement, are not ordinarily suitable for appellate reargument. A first-instance judge has a discretion to supplement a final judgment, but should do so cautiously. Relevant considerations include the definitive nature of the original judgment, the utility of limiting any appeal, whether the further reasoning was genuinely part of the original decision-making process, and whether the exercise would require hypothetical or inconsistent factual findings. The public importance or international character of a claim does not, without a realistic prospect of success, constitute a compelling reason for permission to appeal.

Following a lengthy trial, the court dismissed the claimant’s claims for deceit, unjust enrichment and proprietary remedies and quantified a separate default judgment against one defendant in [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm). The claimant sought permission to appeal only in relation to specified deceit claims against six primary respondents and related secondary claims against other defendants.

The proposed grounds challenged findings concerning the objective meaning of tax-refund documents, the respondents’ understanding of alleged representations, inducement, and whether unjust-enrichment claims involved enrichment at the claimant’s expense. The court also considered whether to supplement its trial judgment with further findings on issues that had not arisen for determination.

1. Permission to appeal refused. The claimant had no more than a fanciful prospect of success on the proposed grounds. The findings that the alleged representations were not conveyed, that the primary respondents did not understand them to have been made, and that the claimant was not induced were quintessential findings of fact based on the evidence as a whole. The proposed appeal substantially sought to re-run factual cases not proved at trial.

2. The objective interpretation issue was also closely bound to the factual context. The claimant could not realistically isolate the alleged dividend-payment representation from the dividend-entitlement representation after having pursued them together at trial. The proposed appeal risked advancing a materially different case.

3. As to unjust enrichment, the court had applied the test that the defendant must have been enriched at the claimant’s expense, as explained in ITC. No realistic challenge was advanced to that legal test or its application. The proposed pure tracing claims added nothing to a valid tracing claim against an asset already held by the defendant.

4. The court exercised a discretion to supplement the trial judgment on limited points. Relevant considerations included the definitive character of a final judgment, the possibility of narrowing an appeal or avoiding further proceedings, whether the further reasoning reflected matters considered originally, and the artificiality of making findings dependent on facts that might be overturned. It declined to determine hypothetical factual issues whose scope could change on appeal.

5. There was no compelling reason under CPR 52.6(1)(b) to grant permission. The size, international nature and alleged fraud against a friendly foreign state did not justify special treatment in the absence of a realistic prospect of success.

1. High Court (Commercial Court): The claimant’s substantive claims were dismissed in [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm). Permission to appeal that dismissal was refused in the present judgment, with written reasons supplied under Civil Procedure Rules 1998.