Judgment of the Tribunal (following its earlier judgment in the same case: [2007] CAT 28) granting the Emerson claimants permission to make a claim for damages against Morgan Crucible under Rule 31(3) of the Tribunal Rules and dismissing Morgan Crucible’s application for that claim to be rejected under Rule 40.
The Tribunal decided that the submissions of Morgan Crucible were not persuasive and did not outweigh the reasons given by the Emerson claimants for arguing in favour of permission. In deciding to grant permission, the Tribunal also gave weight to the prejudice to the claimants of further delay, in particular the risk that relevant documents would not be available at trial.
Separately, Morgan Crucible applied for the claim to be rejected under Rule 40 of the Tribunal Rules. Morgan Crucible contended that there were no reasonable grounds for making a claim due to the existence of a settlement agreement between the parties.
Given the significant disputes of fact and law between the parties, the Tribunal held that it could not be certain that the claim was bound to fail and that, therefore, Morgan Crucible’s Rule 40 application should be dismissed.
The matter was restored for further directions and a further hearing took place in December 2007.
