Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea v Beko Poland Manufacturing & Ors

I am going to start in a sense at the back of the application with Ms Dixon KC’s last submission in relation to precedent. She is entirely right to say that one would not have expected Senior Master Cook to do anything other than make directions which were common to all of the sets of proceedings when he was starting, as it were, with a blank sheet of paper nearly a year ago in December 2024. Also it would be wrong to say simply, as if night follows day, that all steps in all sets of proceedings ought to continue to take place at the same time. To the extent that I am going to follow the principle, which I would prefer to refer to as alignment of the pleadings rather than a lockstep as was used in submissions, I emphasise that it should not be thought to be any kind of precedent for all things happening for all parties at the same time.

I am, however, persuaded that, although in a sense the obvious course would be to get all statements of case in as soon as humanly possible and advance all proceedings as much as possible as early as possible, that that is an unattractive and potentially divisive step to take in this case. Without overstating the interrelatedness of the pleadings, as it was described, it does seem to me that, at what is still remarkably a relatively early stage of these proceedings, it is preferable to have pleadings that are, in terms of timing, aligned with each other. As Ms Piercy KC submitted, going first and on behalf of Harley, as pleadings are drafted, taking account of the interrelatedness, it should be possible to see the whole picture and all the issues that are being raised, not all of which are simply repetitions of another party’s case in each of these sets of proceedings.

Therefore, and slightly contrary to my normal instincts, I am going to fix the dates for what I am going to call the non Celotex pleadings in accordance with the dates set out in Ms Piercy’s common schedule. That is 19 December for the Celotex’s Amended Particulars of Additional Claim; 13 March 2026 for defences to the Particulars of Additional Claim and Defences to any other Particulars of Additional Claim by the same date. Also, in the interests of no further slippage, Replies to the Defences to the Particulars of Additional Claim by 27 March. I note the submissions in support of a later date and what Mr Stokell says about the reasons for that comparatively short period in the original Order. That reflected the urgency of the claims for personal injuries but that is no longer material to the timetable. It would, however, be remarkable if by that stage the parties were not well versed in what ought to be said in those Replies. If that is not the case, no doubt further applications can be made at that stage.

So although I have considerable sympathy with Ms Dixon’s position on this and, as I said perhaps contrary to my natural instincts to just get the pleading done as soon as possible, I am going to fix those dates for the non Celotex pleadings and I hope that Ms Piercy is proved right that that does not lead to any difficulty with the claimants or anyone else progressing matters that can be progressed before the close of pleadings. I think realistically I have to recognise that we will not reach close of pleadings before the case management conference in December although in my view that should still ultimately take place and no harm should therefore be done by these slightly extended dates for those further pleadings.