Field Industrial Supplies WLL v Fredy Thomas

The principal issue in this case is whether the County Court has jurisdiction to decide an action brought at common law on a foreign judgment, a matter upon which counsel have been unable to locate any direct authority. I have concluded that the County Court does not have jurisdiction and that, despite the Defendant being debarred from taking the point, the Court should do so of its own motion. The Claimant did not, as it should have done, consider jurisdiction prior to issue, the underlying claim has no merit in any event, and the proceedings are struck out rather than transferred to the High Court.

Save where noted, the following is uncontroversial:

The Claimant, a company incorporated under the laws of Qatar, is a family business that supplies industrial utility products for power, water, sewage and the oil and gas industries. One of its directors is Francis Frederic, who was the Claimant’s assistant general manager until he took over the business from his father in 2024. The Francis family originate from Kerala, in India. The Defendant is Mr Francis’ first cousin, and in 2006 Mr Francis’ father offered him a job working for the Claimant in Qatar. The Defendant moved to Doha, living with Mr Frederic’s family until he married in 2010 and moved into his own accommodation. He says that he was badly treated by Mr Frederic and his family, which Mr Frederic denies.

The Defendant’s role in the business grew, and by 2013 he was responsible for much of its financial administration, and this included depositing and issuing cheques. Mr Syamraj Nadarajan, also from Kerala, was hired to assist him. In 2016 the Defendant told the Claimant that he was leaving its employment, stating that he planned to move to New Zealand with his wife. This did not transpire, the Defendant instead moving back to India for around a year and then to the United Kingdom. He is now a British citizen.

Mr Nadarajan continued to work for the Claimant, but in mid-2019 Mr Frederic investigated concerns that he might be assisting a rival company. The Claimant obtained copies of Mr Nadarajan’s bank statements, became concerned at payments received in 2014 by way of cheque, and referred the matter to the police. Following their interview with Mr Nadarajan, he departed Qatar that night, never to return. By September 2019 at the latest, the Claimant’s investigations led Mr Frederic to conclude that Mr Nadarajan had committed cheque fraud and was assisted by the Defendant. The Defendant denies any wrongdoing.

Investigators working on behalf of the Qatari authorities tried to contact the Defendant by email using details given to them by Mr Frederic, but never received any reply.

On 28 February 2021, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Doha brought proceedings in the Court of First Instance with the Defendant and Mr Nadarajan specified as the first and second defendants. At a preliminary hearing on 29 April 2021, a court-appointed accounting expert presented a report concluding that the Defendant had embezzled QR 243,303 (£52,046.80 as at the date of issue) through three cheques and that Mr Nadarajan had embezzled QR 234,677.

The Defendant says he missed the correspondence from the investigators and the Qatari court; the Claimant says he deliberately ignored it.

Later in 2021, Mr Frederic was travelling to the UK on business and the two met at Caffè Nero at Heathrow Airport on 16 November 2021. The Claimant asserts that during their conversation, covertly recorded by Mr Frederic, the Defendant admitted wrongdoing; the Defendant denies this.

The Qatari court held a further hearing on 31 March 2022. In its judgment of the same date, the court recorded that both defendants were lawfully summonsed but had not responded or attended, that it accepted the outcome of the investigation, and that both defendants had committed a criminal offence under Article 362 of the Criminal Code. In reaching its conclusion the Court referred to the law of contract, trust and agency. Both defendants were convicted, and the court’s resulting order reads (in translation):

From now on, I shall refer to the court’s judgment and order as “the Judgment”. On 1 June 2022 a Certificate of No Appeal was issued. Paragraph 1 of the Judgment has not been executed, as both individuals had long since departed Qatar and no extradition proceedings have been commenced.

The present proceedings were served by the Claimant’s solicitors on 7 November 2023, and the Defendant contacted Mr Frederic directly. Their telephone call was again covertly recorded by Mr Frederic, who asserts that the Defendant admitted his wrongdoing and admitted his liability to pay the sum ordered in the Judgment; this is again denied by the Defendant.

A Defence was filed on 4 December 2023. The Claimant made an application for summary judgment that was dismissed by DDJ Reed following a hearing on 23 September 2024. On 3 March 2025, HHJ Murdoch gave permission to the Claimant to amend its Particulars of Claim to include a claim based on the asserted admissions by the Defendant.

The start of the trial on 6 August 2025 was delayed by having been moved at short notice from another court; through no apparent fault of the parties I had no papers at all until past 10am and no trial bundle until one could be photocopied. Mr Goodwill had filed a note immediately before the trial raising the issue of jurisdiction. This caused further delay while Ms Rakhimjonova considered her position. I had heard evidence from Mr Frederic and the Defendant, the trial had to be adjourned part-heard due to lack of time. While otherwise regrettable, that adjournment has permitted counsel to make focused written submissions. I thank Ms Rakhimjonova and Mr Goodwill for their assistance with both re-listing and in resolving the substantive issues.

As they arise from the pleadings and the parties’ submissions, the following issues arise for decision:

Does the County Court have jurisdiction to decide a claim brought at common law on a foreign judgment? If not, should the Defendant be taken as having submitted to the Court’s jurisdiction by filing a defence and failing to dispute the Court’s jurisdiction under the procedure set out in CPR 11? If the answer to that question is no, then that part of the proceedings must be either struck out or transferred to the High Court.

Does the Judgment meet the necessary common law requirements? Those in issue are:

Only if the Claimant gets this far, has the Defendant established any of the following defences to the claim:

Finally, if the claim brought on the Judgment fails, should the Court enter judgment on an alternative basis pleaded in the Amended Particulars of Claim? Ms Rakhimjonova clarified the Claimant’s case as that the claimed admission of liability to pay amounted to a separate cause of action that could survive dismissal of the claim brought directly on the Judgment.

In addressing the issues, I shall only set out the parties’ submissions where necessary to explain my conclusions. Mr Goodwill additionally sought to make arguments as to limitation; this had never been pleaded, and for the reasons given at the hearing I refused to allow the defendant to raise it at such a late stage.

The State of Qatar is not a signatory of the Hague Convention, nor can a judgment of a Qatari court be recognised or directly enforced by the High Court or the County Court pursuant to any UK legislation. The claim is therefore brought under the common law. This also means that CPR 74, requiring certain applications to enforce judgments of foreign courts to be made in the High Court, does not apply.

In Owens Bank Ltd v Bracco [1992] 2 AC 443 at 457, Parker LJ noted as follows:

The cause of action has been so described in numerous authorities over the years, including at the highest level: see Rubin & Anor v Eurofinance SA & Ors [2012] UKSC 46 at [9]. More recently, in Lenkor Energy Trading DMCC v Puri [2021] EWCA Civ 770, the Court of Appeal was concerned with a judgment where the Defendant argued illegality in relation to the underlying contract. Lewison LJ held that:

The question in the present case is therefore whether the “obligation to pay the judgment sum enforceable in this jurisdiction as a debt” is a cause of action justiciable in the County Court. Counsel have been unable to find any direct authority, nor even an example of such a claim being decided in the County Court. I afford no significance to the latter point, as if such claims are permissible then they will often have been undefended, decided by summary judgment, or gone unreported.

The County Court is a creature of statute, its jurisdiction restricted to that conferred by Parliament. Numerous pieces of legislation do so in relation to particular disputes, and exclude jurisdiction in others, but I have not been referred to any provision that expressly concerns a claim on a foreign judgment. Turning to the principal source of the County Court’s jurisdiction, Part II of the County Courts Act 1984, the only provisions that might conceivably assist the Claimant are these:

Ms Rakhimjonova, pointing to the substantive issues of law relied upon by the Qatari court in its reasons, and which would also be engaged were they tried in this country, argued that the claim was founded on contract and tort; section 15(1) was thereby engaged. Mr Goodwill, despite having initially disputed jurisdiction at the start of the trial, told me that on reflection he accepted this to be correct. As I indicated to the parties during argument, as the issue is jurisdiction I am unwilling to consider myself bound by that concession if I do not conscientiously believe it to be right. For the following reasons, I reject that the County Court does have jurisdiction.

First, addressing the basis for the Judgment as described in its reasons, I consider it inappropriate to reach any conclusions about Qatari law in the absence of evidence as to its meaning and effect. The underlying factual accusations against the Defendant do have analogues in English law, most likely conversion, deceit, unjust enrichment or fraud. It might also be presumed that the Defendant’s alleged conduct would be contrary to his contract of employment but again I have no evidence on the point. In relation to tort and contract, the meaning of “founded on” at section 15(1) was considered in Hutchings v Islington LBC [1998] 1 WLR 1629. I need not set out the background facts, and in relation to the present issue Evans LJ held as follows:

Applying that test here, a claim on a foreign judgment is not founded on contract or tort. To succeed, the Claimant need not prove any contractual relationship or obligation on the part of the Defendant, nor breach of contract or other duty, nor the elements of any related tort. It need only prove the common law requirements for recognition of a foreign judgment. The phrase “founded on” does not appear in section 23(g), but there is no basis upon which to infer a Parliamentary intention to distinguish foreign judgments related to fraud. To conclude that jurisdiction stems from the nature of the underlying dispute would be contrary to the authorities’ repeated warning not to conflate the cause of action arising from the doctrine of obligation with the cause of action upon which the foreign court reached its judgment.

Two other matters put forward by the Claimant can be addressed in brief terms. First, the Claimant relies on Sun Legend Investments Ltd v Jade Yuk Kuen Ho [2013] BPIR 532, in which District Judge Musgrave held that the debtor could not oppose a bankruptcy petition arising from a judgment issued in Hong Kong on the basis that no action had been taken on the judgment in the English courts. Nothing in that authority assists the Claimant, as shown by the District Judge’s concluding remarks:

Ms Rakhimjonova rested her reliance on the authority on the Defendant having admitted the debt, just like Mrs Ho. Yet as I shall later hold, this is not the case; nor in any event does the argument survive exposure to the conceptual distinction between a bankruptcy petition and a claim.

Second, and in fairness to the Claimant, it did try twice to issue proceedings in the High Court. As explained in Ms Rakhimjonova’s closing note:

I have now been shown such of the correspondence with the court office upon which the former relies, including an email from an administrative officer in the Kings Bench Division issue office explaining why the second attempt was rejected. The email sets out that the correspondence had been referred to a Master:

I cannot see that the High Court ever adjudicated upon whether the County Court had jurisdiction, the point never having been raised. While the High Court has the power to transfer proceedings to the County Court even where the latter would otherwise have no jurisdiction, see National Westminster Bank Plc v King [2008] EWHC 280 (Ch), no such order was made. Nor does it appear that after proceedings were then issued in the County Court, any application was made to have it transferred to the High Court, as the Master had observed “might well be possible”.

Taking all the above points together, I hold that the County Court has no jurisdiction to consider this part of the claim. I cannot see that this interpretation causes any wider difficulties. Claims wrongly issued in the County Court can be transferred to the High Court (subject to subject 42(1)(b)), and claims issued in the High Court can be transferred to the County Court if thought appropriate in light of the considerations at CPR 30.3(2). It is right that in the latter case the High Court, rather than this Court, should choose when to relinquish its exclusive jurisdiction.

Ms Rakhimjonova correctly observes that a Defence was filed, and the issue of jurisdiction never raised at all until the morning of trial. She argues, again entirely correctly, that the Defendant therefore failed to comply with the requirements at CPR 11:

So, she submits, the Defendant is debarred from disputing the Court’s jurisdiction. I agree that this must be the case here, and the seriousness of that failure should not be understated.

The Court is nonetheless entitled to take up an issue of jurisdiction for itself, and prior to the hearing on 3 September I alerted the parties to this possibility so that they might make submissions. In Taylor & Ors v Evans [2023] EWHC 2490 (KB), the particulars of claim included a claim under the Equality Act 2010 asserting that the Claimants had suffered harassment and victimisation contrary to the provisions of that Act. The proceedings had been brought in the High Court, but Part 9 of the Act confers exclusive jurisdiction on the County Court. Having found that CPR 11 was engaged, Master Dagnall held as follows:

In the present case, and if my preceding analysis is correct, the cause of action pursued by the Claimant has been recognised for over a century as falling outside those founded on contract or tort. Yet Parliament has never taken the opportunity to include it within the County Court’s jurisdiction, and I note that CPR 47 reserves proceedings with a statutory underpinning to the High Court. One can well imagine why this should be so for claims involving issues of international private law and that might findings concerning the institutions of other states. The points made in Taylor at [51]-[52] apply equally to a procedural default having the consequence of the County Court arrogating a jurisdiction to itself that properly lays in the High Court. In this case, the parties’ failure to properly and timeously consider jurisdiction provides poor justification for the County Court to act outside the jurisdiction conferred upon it by Parliament. I reject that CPR 11 should operate to do so here.

In addressing consequences, section 42 of the County Courts Act 1984 relevantly provides as follows:

I find that subsection (1) applies, and that the condition precedent at (1)(b) is met such that striking out is mandatory. If subsection (1) does not apply, then exercising the discretion at subsection (2) and taking into account the considerations at CPR 30.3(2), I would still decline to order transfer. My reasons are as follows.

I respectfully agree with the suggestion in Butterworth v Lang [2015] EWHC 529 (Ch) that the matter should be approached according to the familiar three-stage structure set out in Denton v TH White Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 906. First dealing with the seriousness of the default, while the Defendant is certainly to be criticised for failing to address the question of jurisdiction until the last minute, it did so by simply asking for the statutory source of the County Court’s jurisdiction. It was the responsibility of the Claimant to ensure, when issuing the claim, that the County Court had jurisdiction, but the Claimant plainly never turned its mind to the issue until that simple question was asked out loud. Even then, submissions were only made on section 15 of the 1984 Act at my own instigation. Contrary to Ms Rakhimjonova’s arguments, none of the correspondence between the Claimant’s solicitors and the KBD office excuses this failure. This is also relevant to the second stage. The Master simply said that the Claimant had not “suggest[ed] that the County Court lacks jurisdiction” – a form of words that ought to have caused the Claimant to ensure that the County Court did have jurisdiction before issuing there. It is clear from the Master’s concluding remarks that if the Claimant had replied to say that it could not identify how the County Court had jurisdiction and wished the matter to be resolved, then the Master would have turned his mind to that specific matter and convened a hearing if appropriate. Instead the Master’s remarks were, it appears, taken as licence to issue in the County Court; that is certainly how they were represented to me. They cannot justify that characterisation.

I find that issuing the claim without having identified the source of the County Court’s jurisdiction was a serious default, for which there was no good reason. I turn to evaluate all the circumstances of the case to enable me to deal justly with the matter. If the issue had been canvassed at the start of proceedings, before the parties and the Court had been put to the expense of a full trial, beyond question the correct decision would be to transfer the proceedings to the High Court. Fault for that lies with both parties, but the Defendant’s contribution can be recognised (if appropriate) when deciding the issue of costs. Having heard the parties’ submissions and evidence in full, it would be wholly contrary to the overriding objective to now require the High Court to repeat the entire exercise. Mr Goodwill suggested that if the matter were transferred to the High Court then I could be authorised to hear the case as a High Court Judge for that specific purpose, but the practicalities of that course are (to say the least) uncertain and it would still occasion further delay. As a result of the work already undertaken, I have reached the view that the claim should be struck out rather than re-heard. Furthermore, this this is one of the rare cases where the underlying merits of the claim are so very weak as to factor into the exercise of discretion at stage 3. I give my reasons for this conclusion below, when considering whether the Qatari court had jurisdiction over the Defendant. The claim on the Judgment is struck out under CPR 3.4 as disclosing no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim.

An essential requirement for enforcement of a foreign judgment is that the foreign court had jurisdiction over the Defendant. As my conclusions on jurisdiction are informed by the merits of the claim, and having heard evidence and argument, it is right to set out my assessment of this issue.

The parties agree that the circumstances in which a foreign court is treated as having had jurisdiction over the Defendant according to English law is correctly set out in Dicey, Morris & Collins on the Conflict of Laws, 16^th edition, at 14R-058:

The Claimant accepts that the second to the fourth cases cannot apply, so it must rely on the first. The Defendant’s case in response is straightforward: the alleged wrongdoing was in 2014, the Claimant left Qatar in 2016, wrongdoing was first suggested in 2019, and proceedings were not instituted until 2021. The Defendant cannot be taken as subject to the Qatari court’s jurisdiction.

It is clear that the rule ordinarily calls for physical presence, or perhaps residence. In Adams v Cape Industries Plc [1990] Ch 433, CA, described in Dicey as the leading modern authority, the Court of Appeal set out three principles at 517-518:

Clearly the Defendant was not physically present in Qatar on the date that proceedings were instituted, nor on the date they were served. To overcome his absence, Ms Rakhimjonova first observes that the law is not fully settled as to the type and length of residence that will suffice: see, for example, The Official Receiver of the Bangkok of Commerce Public Company Limited v Saxena [2023] EWHC 521 (Comm) at [48], in which Dame Clare Moulder DBE declined to rule on whether Mr Saxena was within the jurisdiction of the Thai courts when his presence there arose solely due to his forcible extradition. I agree that the requirement for physical presence on a particular date may, hypothetically, have exceptions – one such possible exception is envisaged in Adams in relation to the second principle, above.

The potential exception put forward in this case borrows from the law of extradition, concerning where an individual is properly described as a “fugitive”. Ms Rakhimjonova referred me to the convenient description of the principle and its purpose given by Fordham J in Makowska v Poland [2020] EWHC 2371 (Admin):

I first reject that fugitivity can establish jurisdiction in personam as a matter of principle. Taken at its highest, and if all the facts asserted by the Claimant were found and suggested inferences drawn, the Claimant’s case is that the Defendant committed the acts upon which the Judgment is based, left Qatar in anticipation of discovery, and later refused to engage with the Qatari authorities to avoid the consequences of his wrongdoing. This means he was neither present nor resident when proceedings were instituted, and no authority has been cited for the proposition that an individual’s prior presence or residence will suffice solely because it was ceased in contemplation of proceedings. As observed in Dicey at 14-084, agreement to submit to the jurisdiction cannot be implied from the fact that the cause of action arose within a foreign country or from the additional fact that the defendant was present there when the cause of action arose; see the cited case of Emanuel v Symon [1908] 1 KB 302. Nor, finally, does fugitivity operate as a discrete jurisdictional gateway even in extradition; it instead answers a claim of delay on the part of the prosecuting authorities and factors into any Article 8 proportionality assessment.

Nor, if I am wrong, could the Claimant succeed in showing fugitivity on the facts. In Makowska, Fordham J reduced the principles expressed in the relevant authorities to three linked themes:

As argued by Mr Goodwill, the Defendant left Qatar in 2016, so two years after the alleged wrongdoing and two to three years before the Claimant developed any suspicions. There is no basis upon which it can be properly inferred that he left to avoid detection. He was cross-examined on the change in plans after leaving, doubt being cast upon the truth of the initial account of his wife having found employment in New Zealand. The explanation he gave, being a change in New Zealand’s immigration rules, is not manifestly implausible. Even if the Defendant was deceptive, which I strongly doubt, it is impossible to draw a logical connection with elusiveness. He returned to mutual family in India where the grapevine promptly informed Mr Frederic’s family of his whereabouts, and then moved to the UK.

Ms Rakhimjonova points to what the Defendant said in the first covertly recorded conversation, on 16 November 2021. The Defendant submits that the covert recordings relied upon the Claimant should not be admitted into evidence in any event, but for the moment I consider them de bene esse. Only two minutes and 16 seconds of a much longer meeting have been translated, transcribed and placed in the bundle, and I can set it out in its entirety: (“Uncle” refers to Mr Frederic’s father)

The statement “That is the only reason I am here now” is put forward by Mr Frederic as the Defendant’s confession that avoiding responsibility for his wrongdoing is why he is now in the UK rather than Qatar. A casual reader of this judgment might find that interpretation surprising and assume it to be justified by the wider evidence. They would be wrong. Even if the Claimant established all its allegations against the Defendant, and all the asserted adverse inferences against the Defendant were drawn, I would reject the Claimant’s case on this point.

The extract must be read as coming after Mr Frederic had given a lengthy explanation as to how institution of criminal proceedings would now inevitably lead to the Defendant going to prison. The heart of the conversation was the issue of the cheques being paid to Mr Nadarajan or his associates, as had previously been made clear to the Defendant. Taking into account the whole conversation and its context, the only sensible interpretation of the comment is that the Defendant attributed delay (or, as he saw it, forbearance) in progressing criminal proceedings to him still being at liberty.

Nor is fugitivity established by the rest of the Claimant’s case, even taken at its highest. Whatever his reasons for leaving Qatar, the Defendant remained entirely open about his whereabouts. Mr Frederic heard through mutual family that the Defendant had not moved to New Zealand but remained in India, and then that he had moved to the UK. Mr Frederic’s witness statement describes how during the 2019 investigation he sent images of cheques to the Defendant using WhatsApp; the Defendant replied and the two discussed the matter. When Mr Frederic visited the UK in 2021, the two were in contact and readily arranged a meeting. The Defendant texted his full home address to Mr Frederic and it was Mr Frederic’s choice to meet at a coffee shop at Heathrow Airport instead. Mr Frederic describes how, by the end of the meeting, the Defendant “was at ease and even invited me to his home to see his family”; that invitation was rejected. When the present proceedings were issued, there was no difficulty with service and the two had a telephone conversation about them very soon afterwards.

The final point put forward in support of fugitivity is the lack of response to the Qatari investigator and court correspondence. The Defendant’s explanation is that he received the relevant documents by email, could not read Arabic so did not know what they were, so thought they were spam and disregarded them. Even if this is untrue, and the Defendant deliberately ignored the Qatari court proceedings to avoid them, I cannot see that failing to take positive steps to engage with foreign proceedings amounts to fugitivity. Even if it does so in extradition, its application to establish civil jurisdiction in personam on a foreign court would entirely undermine the purpose of the Third Case listed in Dicey, above, which concerns a person who has voluntarily appeared in the proceedings (see the further discussion at 14-073). A person who engaged with proceedings would be held to have submitted to the foreign court’s jurisdiction, but a person who did not engage would be counted a fugitive. The Claimant’s contention that a foreign court can gain jurisdiction over someone overseas by demanding they act is plainly circular.

Taking all those matters together, including the other attacks on the Defendant’s credibility made by Ms Rakhimjonova, there is no arguable basis upon which the Defendant can properly be described as a fugitive. The observations made by Fordham J at [29] about the Pillar-Neumann case apply equally here. Even on the Claimant’s case the Defendant was entirely open about his whereabouts, took no steps that had the purpose of putting himself beyond the reach of a legal process, and was not in any respect elusive.

While this issue no longer arises, in deference to the arguments advanced I set out a brief assessment. As stated in Dicey at 14-026, it is “well settled that an English court will not entertain an action for the enforcement, either directly or indirectly, of a penal or revenue, or other public law of a foreign country.”

In Raulin v Fischer [1911] 2 K.B. 93, a French court had sentenced the defendant to one month’s imprisonment and, upon considering expert medical evidence, ordered her to pay the plaintiff 15,000 francs in damages. Deciding the English action on that judgment, the High Court held that the award of damages could be severed from the criminal penalty. While French law made no such distinction, it was for the English court to “determine whether the judgment sued on was a penal one or not”. The award of damages was for a private wrong, had been able to take account of the issue of contributory negligence despite that being no defence to the criminal charge, and the civil remedy (unlike the sentence) would not abate on the plaintiff’s death. It was “not in any respect a judgment in a proceeding ‘in favour of the State whose law had been infringed’.” The principles applied that case are consistent with the way they have been more recently expressed in Islamic Republic of Iran v The Barakat Galleries Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 1374.

In my judgment, the second and third paragraphs of the Qatari court’s order can likewise be severed from the punitive sanction in the first: they are reached through an analysis of the civil wrongs committed against the Claimant; they accord with the sum assessed as having been embezzled; they are payable to the Claimant; and they are recoverable through civil execution.

The Particulars of Claim were amended to include that the Defendant had admitted his liability to pay the compensation ordered in the Judgment, as follows:

The underlying factual matrix was also pleaded. HHJ Murdoch gave permission for an Amended Defence to be filed and served, but this was never done. Nonetheless, no consequential application was made and Ms Rakhimjonova simply invites the Court to decide whether the Claimant has proved its claim in this respect.

No substantive cause of action in relation to the Defendant’s alleged wrongdoing has been pleaded, Ms Rakhimjonova instead argued that an admission of a debt crystallises it into a separate cause of action upon which judgment can be obtained. No authority has been cited to that effect, and I note that in Ashmore and Others v Corporation of Lloyd's [1992] 1 W.L.R. 446 at 452D, Lord Templeman rejected that an admission could create a duty in tort if no such duty existed beforehand, and criticised the plaintiff for failing to properly plead how that duty had arisen. In my judgment the law is clear: an admission is a form of evidence that may be adduced in support of a party’s case and may (if in writing) entitle a party to apply for judgment under CPR 14; it does not create a separate cause of action. No written admissions are relied upon, so CPR 14 falls away. Even if the Defendant had clearly and unequivocally admitted liability, that admission cannot circumvent the lack of jurisdiction to hear the underlying cause of action. The prior conclusion on jurisdiction means that this part of the proceedings must also be struck out.

As the County Court lacks jurisdiction and I decline to exercise any discretion to transfer the claim to the High Court, the claim is struck out.