Ashley Cukier discusses Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs v Infinity Distribution Ltd (in Administration) [2016] EWCA Civ 1014 in which the Court of Appeal makes some interesting observations about admissibility of evidence in respect of fraud, incongruity of statements and pleaded cases, and case management.
Given the increased workload of the Court of Appeal (the most recent Practice Note on hear-by dates confirms that the number of permission applications filed in the Court of Appeal has increased by 67% since 2003; whereas the number of Lord/Lady Justices of Appeal has increased by one) it is perhaps unsurprising that, in a recent case, when offered the choice of whether to reach its outcome “by a short route, or a long route”, the Court of Appeal chose the short route. It did so, however, for entirely proper reasons: a desire to ensure that, in procedural terms, the court did not “put the cart before the horse”.
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