27 Aug 2025
The court, exercising case‑management powers under the District Court Rules and Practice Direction 18.1, ordered that translation of English trial documents into Chinese was not required because the presiding judge is bilingual and compelling translation would not be cost‑effective, and set fixed trial dates and filing deadlines accordingly.
20 May 2025
Leave granted to correct an apparent typographical error in paragraph 2(e) (replace 'after' with 'before') because no prejudice arose; substantive amendments asserting deliberate self-injury and serious or wilful misconduct were refused because they introduced new matters late without sufficient explanation or particulars and would cause prejudice and require further evidence and discovery; application to adjourn trial was dismissed because witness unavailability for personal travel did not constitute exceptional circumstances under O 25 r 3(3); costs awarded to Applicant summarily assessed a…
29 May 2024
Permission for the out‑of‑time appeal was refused because the plaintiff failed to provide satisfactory reasons for the delay, the registrar acted reasonably in refusing to adjourn the 7/12/2023 hearing absent adequate supporting evidence, there was no proper basis for recusal, and on a rehearing the court would have made substantially the same case management directions; accordingly the appeal is dismissed and costs awarded to the defendant.
21 Dec 2022
The judge declined to fix trial dates because he does not expect to be the trial judge and directed that allocation be dealt with at the next CMC before the judge expected to try the case.
27 Jul 2022
The court dismissed the summons for leave to file the supplemental witness statement and the summons for leave to adduce expert evidence because the proposed witness statement impermissibly sought to introduce or recite documents without proper disclosure and the proposed expert evidence was unjustified and too late, causing real prejudice to the defendant and requiring vacating trial dates. The court granted leave to re-amend the Statement of Claim where amendments were textual or based on already disclosed material and would not derail the trial. The plaintiff was ordered to pay the defenda…
29 Apr 2022
The applications were dismissed because consolidation would cause unfair prejudice to defendants: the proposed merger substantially increased the number of defendants, charges and witnesses with insufficient time before the scheduled milestone trial dates for effective preparation; several counsel would be unable to continue, privately funded defendants faced significant additional legal costs, and the prosecution's optimistic trial‑length estimates and asserted overlaps did not justify altering established trial dates.
29 Apr 2022
The applications to consolidate were dismissed because the court concluded consolidation would cause unfair prejudice to defendants: the trials were already scheduled within months, consolidation would materially increase complexity and require significant additional defence preparation in an unrealistically short time, some counsel would be unavailable and replacements could not be prepared in time, prosecution's trial‑length estimates were optimistic, and court facilities and COVID‑19 risks weighed against consolidating large numbers of defendants into single trials.
11 Apr 2022
The court declined to consolidate DCCC115/112/114 because the existing split and timetable were a pragmatic allocation of limited court resources and there was insufficient justification to disturb that arrangement; the court granted consolidation of DCCC113/116 because the issues in the two indictments were sufficiently similar, projected facilities and timetable made joint trial practicable with limited prejudice to defendants, and there was adequate time to reassign counsel and prepare, hence listing the consolidated trial for 14 August to 9 October 2023 (estimated 40 days).
31 Jan 2022
The respondent failed to show exceptional circumstances or to take reasonable steps to mitigate prejudice by promptly applying for leave to give evidence by VCF after the flight ban; milestone trial dates fixed long in advance should not be vacated absent most exceptional circumstances; therefore the summons to vacate the trial dates is dismissed.
10 Aug 2018
Leave to file the 2nd supplemental witness statement was refused because the proposed statement sought to introduce a new auditing dimension at a very late stage without prior pleading, interrogatories or discovery of relevant documents; the delay was attributable to the defence and would cause serious prejudice and likely disrupt the trial timetable.