Herbert Smith Freehills provides a comprehensive summary of the 2018 decision in Midnight Marine Ltd v Thomas Miller Speciality Underwriting Agency Ltd [2018] EWHC 3431 (Comm), where the English High Court proposed a procedurally strict approach to serious irregularity challenges under s.68 of the English Act in circumstance where these have already been dismissed on paper.
The authors note that the decision takes a tougher line than the earlier Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria v Qatar National Bank decision, where the judge expounded the benefits of an oral hearing at which parties’ positions can be advanced and tested in a way not always readily achieveable on paper, suggesting that the oral hearing referred to in the summary dismissal process should be a very short hearing, directed only at the question of whether the application has a real prospect of success.
