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High Court: 1) allows a defendant's motion to strike out a plaintiffs' claim, on the grounds that it amounted to an abuse of process; and 2) refuses to allow the plaintiffs to amend their statement of claim, holding that the plaintiffs did not have "new facts" as claimed, and it would be wholly vexatious to allow the plaintiffs to make an entirely different case against the defendants based on evidence or facts available to them at the earlier interlocutory hearing, and which represent a complete volte face by them.
Two motions before the court - defendant's motion to strike out the plaintiff's claim - plaintiff's motion seeking leave to amend statement of claim - plaintiffs sought various reliefs against the defendant's including an order setting aside a judgment of the Commercial Court of €17,663,876 from March 2014 - plaintiffs sought and obtained an interim injunction restraining the defendants from taking steps to enforce the judgment - application for injunction was fixed for hearing in February 2015 - application for injunction refused - in November 2015, plaintiff's issued motion to amend the statement of claim - plaintiffs claim they have new evidence against the first named defendant financial institution - plaintiffs state that the new evidence was not available when the original statement of claim was delivered, but do not deny it was available when the injunction was heard - no satisfactory reason has been offered to the court as to why the plaintiffs did not rely on this evidence at the interlocutory injunction hearing - court enjoys a wide discretion to grant leave to amend pleadings - a party who applies for an order allowing it to amend pleadings must furnish reasons why - the defendants have established that, even accepting the matters pleaded originally in the statement of claim, they disclose no reasonable cause of action - certain overlap between the motion to amend and the motion to strike out - proceedings are in effect a collateral attack on the judgment of March 2014 - that judgment was not appealed - plaintiff's claim is bound to fail - the fact that the defendants’ motion to dismiss was brought before the plaintiffs sought to rely on “new facts” does not affect the position - no satisfactory explanation has been offered to the court as to why the plaintiffs did not amend the statement of claim without leave when it was open to them to do so, as they had the information on which they now seek to rely - proceedings struck out as they amount to an abuse of process.
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