Background
This hearing arose out of consequential matters following Mr Justice Thompsell’s substantive judgment of 28 July 2025 ([2025] EWHC 1961 (Ch)), in which the judge dismissed a Part 20 Claim brought by Mr Camran Mirza against three directors — Mark Lewin, Oliver Webster, and Dawn Yates (collectively “the Directors”). On 11 August 2025, the judge made a costs order in favour of the Directors including an interim payment of £1.3 million, which Mr Mirza did not pay. Separately, Mr Mirza and other defendants in the underlying Main Action (brought by a Mr Morjaria) obtained permission from Newey LJ in November 2025 to appeal on multiple grounds, including a ground of procedural unfairness at trial. Mr Mirza did not, however, seek permission to appeal the dismissal of his Part 20 Claim.
With the Main Action appeal listed for hearing in October 2026, Mr Mirza applied to stay enforcement of the £1.3 million interim costs order by writ of control and generally, arguing that: (1) Mr Morjaria had substantially funded the Directors’ litigation and would benefit from enforcement; (2) forcing a sale of assets — principally an interest in a property development at Walpole Court financed by an Islamic Murabaha facility — would be commercially ruinous; and (3) a finding of procedural unfairness by the Court of Appeal could void the entire substantive judgment, including the Part 20 dismissal. The Directors cross-applied for charging orders over Mr Mirza’s land and securities, and Mr Mirza sought to set aside a January 2026 examination order requiring him to attend court to answer questions about his means.
An unusual procedural issue arose at the outset: because Mr Mirza’s stay argument relied heavily on the likelihood that the trial had been procedurally unfair, the judge raised a concern about impartiality — he would effectively be assessing the fairness of his own conduct of the trial. The problem was resolved when the Directors’ counsel conceded, for the purposes of the hearing only, that the procedural unfairness argument would be assumed to have a good prospect of success before the Court of Appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The judge rejected both of the stay arguments that did not depend on the appeal prospects. On the Morjaria-funding argument, the court found — accepting the Directors’ witness evidence — that £1.6 million of the Directors’ costs had in fact been paid by their employer, IQEQ, not by Mr Morjaria, so any payment under the interim costs order would not revert to Morjaria. The argument was dismissed as having even less merit than when previously rejected. On the financial-hardship argument, the judge accepted that asset sales would likely be commercially disadvantageous, but found that the disadvantage was unlikely to improve materially before any Court of Appeal decision: the Murabaha early-repayment burden would persist to 2029, the vacant-possession point was undermined by the Renters’ Rights Act 2026, and any improvement in Mr Mirza’s position following a successful appeal was too speculative and distant to justify a stay.
On the procedural unfairness argument, the court held that it could not simply treat the risk of a wholesale voidance of the substantive judgment as justifying an open-ended stay, because there was no appeal on foot in respect of the Part 20 Claim. The court accepted that if such an appeal existed it would grant a stay, and that it could not discount the possibility of the Court of Appeal granting late permission on procedural unfairness grounds. The judge therefore granted a short conditional stay: Mr Mirza has one week from the date of judgment to apply to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal the Part 20 Claim on procedural unfairness grounds. If he lodges such an application within that time, the stay is automatically extended until the Court of Appeal decides on permission; if he does not, or permission is refused, the stay expires.
On the set-aside application, the judge rejected the contention that the Directors had breached their duty of full and frank disclosure in the ex parte examination application, relying on Vale v BSG [2020] EWHC 2021 for the principle that a judgment creditor is not obliged to disclose what financial information it already holds, and that the Part 71 procedure is largely mechanical once the formal requirements are satisfied. The court also rejected the argument that the examination would be otiose given prior disclosure, finding that the financial information Mr Mirza had provided was incomplete.
Key Takeaways
- Commercial disadvantage from asset realisation will not, by itself, constitute “special circumstances” under CPR 83.7(4)(a) justifying a stay of enforcement unless there is either a live appeal or a realistic prospect that the paying party’s position will materially improve within the stay period.
- Where a risk of procedural unfairness could notionally void an entire judgment, a party seeking to stay enforcement of an unappealed costs order on that basis must first obtain permission to appeal — the court will grant only a brief window for the party to pursue that application, rather than an open-ended stay.
- Under the Part 71 examination procedure, a judgment creditor has no duty of full and frank disclosure regarding financial information already in its possession, and the court’s role is largely mechanical once the procedural requirements are met.
- A judge facing a “marking my own homework” impartiality concern when assessing the fairness of their own trial may proceed if the opposing party concedes the disputed premise, removing the need for the judge to resolve it.
Why It Matters
This decision provides useful clarification on the boundaries of the “special circumstances” jurisdiction under CPR 83.7 in costs-enforcement disputes where appeals are pending. It confirms that the prospect of a court of appeal voiding a judgment for procedural unfairness can, in principle, provide grounds for a stay — but only if the party seeking the stay has actually pursued or is actively pursuing an appeal of the relevant order. Courts will not hold enforcement in limbo indefinitely on the basis of a speculative procedural-unfairness argument attached to a different set of proceedings.
The case is also a practical illustration of how courts manage the tension between swift enforcement of valid costs orders and the possibility — raised by Serafin v Malkiewicz [2020] UKSC 23 — that a judgment tainted by procedural unfairness is “written in water.” The proportionate solution adopted here — a short, time-limited window to seek permission to appeal — offers a replicable template for future cases where a judgment debtor argues that a related appeal might undermine the foundation of an unappealed costs order.