Practice and procedure

CPR 24.2 provided that the court might give summary judgment against a defendant where it considered that the defendant had no real prospect of successfully defending the claim and there was no other compelling reason why the case should not be disposed of at a trial.

It was established case law that the criterion that was to be applied by the judge was not one of probability but of the absence of reality. It was further established law that an adjudicator did not have the jurisdiction to decide his own jurisdiction unless the parties had effectively agreed or permitted him to do so.

Where a defendant to a CPR 24(2) application had submitted to the adjudicator’s jurisdiction, in the full sense of having agreed not only that the adjudicator should rule on the issue of jurisdiction but also that he would then be bound by that ruling, then he is liable to enforcement in the short term, even if