Crane Bank Limited & Ors v DFCU Bank Limited & Ors

An amendment is consequential only where it responds to an identifiable change or alteration in the opposing case. It is insufficient that the amendment also relates to issues already pleaded. The court must enforce the express limits of any order granting permission to amend.

Permission for a late amendment depends on the balance of injustice, taking account of intelligibility, credibility, timing, particularity, disclosure, evidence, trial consequences, delay and the overriding objective. A pleading must state the primary facts relied on clearly and coherently. A party cannot use witness evidence or a hearsay notice to supply allegations absent from the pleading.

The First Defendant sought permission to introduce disputed amendments into its defence, principally detailed allegations of mismanagement and wrongdoing derived from PricewaterhouseCoopers reports concerning the Claimants’ Ugandan bank. It alternatively contended that the amendments were consequential on amendments to the particulars of claim or reply and therefore fell within an earlier order permitting consequential amendments.

The Claimants opposed the amendments and applied to strike them out if they were consequential. The issues were whether the amendments responded to a change in the Claimants’ case, whether they were adequately particularised, and whether the balance of injustice justified permission at a late stage before a 12-week trial.

1. Application outcome. Permission to make the disputed amendments was refused. The Strike Out Application therefore required no determination.
2. Consequential amendments. A causative link must be identifiable between the amendment and the change in the opposing case. The disputed amendments introduced new positive allegations supporting an existing mismanagement case. They did not respond in substance to the Claimants’ amendments, which largely maintained issues already in dispute. They therefore fell outside the Henshaw Order and were not otherwise consequential.
3. Scope of permission. Where an order expressly defines the permitted consequential amendments, a party cannot rely on a broader general principle to override that order. CPR 17.3 supported that conclusion.
4. Pleading requirements. The allegations were insufficiently particularised, ambiguous and incoherent. Reliance on the PWC reports or a hearsay notice could not substitute for pleading the primary facts. The scope of cross-examination is fixed by the pleadings, not by witness evidence.
5. Balance of injustice. The proposed amendments would require further disclosure, factual evidence from additional witnesses, expanded or new expert evidence and substantial preparation on historic and complex allegations. They could not be accommodated within the existing trial timetable. Those factors outweighed the prejudice to the First Defendant in refusing permission. The court applied the overriding objective and the principles governing late amendments described in Essex County Council v UBB Waste (Essex) Ltd and related authorities.

First-instance decision. The judgment refers to an earlier amendment decision of Mr Paul Stanley KC, [2025] EWHC 1915 (Comm), and to the subsequent order of Henshaw J.