Maggie Otto v Inner Mongolia Happy Lamb Catering Management Company (Re HLHP Oriental Food Limited)

A pleading must identify the conduct relied on with sufficient precision to enable each respondent to understand and answer the case. A broad allegation against several respondents may be permissible where the pleading particulars identify the relevant acts and their attribution. Alternative pleading is not objectionable in principle, but its adequacy is fact-sensitive.

When deciding whether to permit amendment, the court must apply the overriding objective. Delay, procedural failures and additional costs must be balanced against the need to determine issues that are now capable of being pleaded and tried, particularly where no serious prejudice is shown.

The ruling concerned compliance with an earlier conditional decision refusing permission to amend an unfair-prejudice petition unless specified allegations were properly attributed to particular respondents. The petitioners filed a further draft, opposed by the active respondents, who sought strike-out or reverse summary judgment.

The court considered whether the revised allegations cured the identified pleading defects and whether permission should be granted, including joinder of In-Touch Investment Holding Ltd. The earlier decision is reported at [2025] EWHC 2291 (Ch).

1. Specificity of attribution. The earlier objections concerned allegations which did not identify which respondents were responsible for particular acts or omissions. The court held that the revised pleading adequately addressed each criticism. An allegation against all five active respondents was permissible where the particulars below identified the conduct relied on. The petitioners accepted the corresponding costs risk, but the respondents could understand the case they had to answer.
2. Alternative pleading. Claims pleaded in the alternative are not objectionable in principle. Whether an alternative allegation provides sufficient clarity is a fact-sensitive question. The revised allegation attributing the agreement to R1 by R3 resolved the previous uncertainty.
3. Permission and the overriding objective. The petitioners’ earlier procedural failures, delay and the respondents’ additional costs weighed against permission. However, the issues were now capable of being pleaded and tried, and no serious prejudice was shown. Under CPR rule 1.1, the court was required to balance equal footing, proportionality, expedition, fairness and compliance with rules and orders. Justice required the litigation to proceed.
4. The ordinary civil procedure rules apply equally to represented and unrepresented litigants, and to litigants regardless of nationality or language. The petitioners’ status, language and earlier self-representation did not excuse non-compliance.
5. In general, a person suffers no cause of action merely because another person sues unsuccessfully. A different position might arise if proceedings were brought in bad faith deliberately to cause harm, but that possibility was not suggested on the facts.
6. The active respondents’ strike-out or reverse-summary-judgment application was dismissed. Permission was granted to re-amend the petition and to join In-Touch Investment Holding Ltd in the form filed on 26 September 2025. The parties were directed to provide an agreed minute of order and directions, including further statements of case and a CCMC.

This was a first-instance ruling on compliance with the court’s earlier conditional decision, reported at [2025] EWHC 2291 (Ch). The present court dismissed the respondents’ strike-out or reverse-summary-judgment application and granted permission to amend.