Section 39A of the Arbitration Act 1996, introduced through the 2025 reforms, gives tribunals a potent new mechanism to dismiss claims with no real prospect of success. The promise: quicker, leaner arbitrations. The risks: due-process challenges, enforceability concerns, and tension with stricter institutional rules.

That was how Stephen Houseman KC, sitting as a deputy Commercial Court Judge described the claimants’ conduct when he struck out an application for summary judgment on their US$300m fraud claim.

Another success for PCB Byrne LLP. Nick Ractliff and Yana Ahlden acted for the Chabra Respondents based in Spain in seeking to have a worldwide freezing order obtained against them discharged on jurisdictional grounds in Gibert v Broadoak Private Finance Limited [2026] EWHC 153 (KB).

The Court of Appeal has ruled on a critical jurisdictional question affecting civil fraud and asset recovery practitioners: whether judgment creditors can serve stand-alone worldwide freezing orders on third parties abroad under section 37(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981. In Gilbert v Broadoak Private Finance Ltd, the court examined the scope of jurisdictional gateways and their application to Chabra respondents located overseas, with significant implications for cross-border enforcement proceedings.

The judgment offers useful guidance on the scope of applications under s. 45 Arbitration Act 1996, a provision little used in practice.

On 25 March 2026, the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous judgment in UniCredit Bank GmbH, London Branch v Celestial Aviation Services Ltd and v Constitution Aircraft Leasing (Ireland) 3 Ltd [2026] UKSC 10, dismissing the appellants’ appeals and allowing the Bank’s cross-appeals.

The Court of Appeal has delivered a landmark ruling on abuse of process, upholding findings that claimants engaged in unlawful conduct by covertly obtaining privileged litigation material from the defendants' solicitor through deception. The judgment addresses whether such conduct warrants striking out applications and discharging freezing orders worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a complex fraud case involving stock lending transactions.

The Bar Standards Board has issued comprehensive guidance on AI use by barristers, establishing clear obligations around transparency, supervision, and risk management. Just days later, a High Court judgment publicly reprimanded a major law firm for misleading the court through unchecked AI-generated content, raising urgent questions about whether the Solicitors Regulation Authority should follow suit with equivalent guidance for solicitors.

The corporate offence of Failure to Prevent Fraud (FtPF) in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 creates criminal liability for in scope organisations where an “associated person” (employees, agents, subsidiaries or others acting for or on behalf of the firm) commits a “specified fraud offence” intending to benefit the firm or its customers, unless the firm can demonstrate, on the balance of probabilities, that it had reasonable prevention procedures in place at the time or that it was not reasonable in all the circumstances to have any procedures.

Following a three-and-a-half-week trial, the High Court has ruled in favour of Mr. Gagliardi in a comprehensive 154-page judgment in Robert Gagliardi v Evolution Capital Management LLC [2025] EWHC 3214 (Comm). Mr. Justice Calver found that Mr. Gagliardi was contractually entitled to a $5.385 million discretionary bonus for his hugely profitable trading in 2021, which Evolution Capital Management LLC (“ECM”) had unlawfully failed to pay. The Court dismissed ECM’s counterclaim in its entirety.

PCB Byrne has successfully represented Russian aluminium giant IPJSC United Company Rusal (“Rusal”) in obtaining a disclosure order against Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin in relation to documents held by PJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel (“NN”) and its subsidiaries in a major dispute in the Commercial Court.

In recent days, the legal community and broader public have been closely following Justice Secretary David Lammy's proposals to reform jury trials in England and Wales. After initial reports suggesting a dramatic reduction in jury trials, Lammy has now unveiled a more measured but still significant "Swift Courts" plan that will fundamentally alter access to jury trials for many defendants.