Matthew Bradley KC and William Birch represented the successful Claimant at trial. The Claimant had made a Part 36 offer to settle his claim for a 9% discount some months before trial. The Defendant argued that the CPR 36 consequences should not apply, primarily because the offer was alleged not to be a genuine attempt to settle the proceedings for the purposes of CPR 36.17(5)(e)).
Dexter Dias J found that a percentage offer in the early 90s was justified given “given the strength of the claimant’s case. He had a rational and reasonable basis to conclude that his prospects were strong and thus a discount of just under 10 per cent was justified”. Further, the fact that the outcome at trial was always going to be ‘all or nothing’, and so was inherently “binary”, did not render a high offer inherently inappropriate.
The decision, which can be found here, will be of interest to litigators looking successfully to pitch offers to settle under the Part 36 regime.
