The High Court allowed European Property Fund plc to amend parts of its claim against Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd, while refusing other proposed changes and directing the company to submit a revised draft statement of claim within three weeks.
Ms Justice Costello’s judgment, delivered on 28 January 2016, concerned the scope of amendments after an earlier ruling on the bank’s application to strike out the proceedings. In July 2015, the court struck out Laurelmore Ltd’s entire claim and dismissed most of European Property Fund’s claims. Claims concerning the alleged coercion of property sales and delay in closing out facilities remained. The court had given the fund liberty to seek an amendment.
The proposed amended pleading ran to 40 pages and introduced several new causes of action. The judge refused proposed claims based on duties to act fairly or in good faith, and rejected pleas that the EPF Facility had been mispriced. She held that those amendments conflicted with the earlier ruling that the facility’s terms were governed by its written documents and applicable standard terms. The court also refused amendments concerning the defendant’s GRG relationship with the fund and findings about Royal Bank of Scotland in a UK report, saying the proposed pleas did not establish their relevance to the defendant’s liability.
Some new misrepresentation claims were allowed, except for wording that relied on the rejected mispricing allegation. The fund was also permitted to include specified threats, coercion and duress pleas, and amendments about alleged delay in closing out facilities and related costs, subject to clarifying that the so-called Belgrave Road Derivative was the demand loan facility to the fund.
On Libor, the judge refused proposed claims that would treat the fixed-rate EPF Facility as linked to Libor, as well as particulars that relied on alleged conduct by RBS without linking it to representations by Ulster Bank. The fund could plead its own case that Ulster Bank made careless or negligent Libor representations to it, and could amend certain related duty and loss pleas. It was also permitted to recast claims concerning allegedly unlawful break costs, but the revised pleading must identify the contracts, applicable interest terms, demands and basis for alleging the calculations were unjustified.
The court directed the fund to prepare a further draft that did not go beyond the proposed amendments and complied with both judgments. The revised statement of claim was to be delivered within three weeks. The judgment did not decide the surviving claims on their merits.