The Court of Appeal has allowed a party to proceed with an action seeking to set aside a default judgment against him in earlier proceedings on the basis that the judgment was procured by fraud. The fact that, prior to the original proceedings, the party was aware of the factual circumstances now relied on to plead fraud did not mean that the action was an abuse of process: Park v CNH Industrial Capital Europe Ltd (trading as CNH Capital) [2021] EWCA Civ 1766.
The decision is of interest for its application of the principles recently confirmed by the Supreme Court in Takhar v Gracefield Developments Ltd [2020] UKSC 13 regarding the circumstances in which a judgment can be set aside for fraud or dishonesty (discussed in this post). Although the present case was decided in the context of a small business dispute, the principles discussed will apply equally in more complex commercial litigation.
For more information see this post on our Civil Fraud and Asset Tracing Notes Blog.
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