Baltimore Wharf SLP v Ballymore Properties Limited & Anor [2026] EWHC 312 (TCC)

The defendant and a Part 20 defendant applied for summary judgment or to strike out the claimant's actions on the basis that the proceedings had been settled by agreement, together with a related application by the defendant.

Mr Recorder Singer KC examined the negotiations relied on as amounting to a settlement. He found that they did not cross the line into a binding agreement: the exchange said to be an acceptance was the high point of the correspondence but did not conclude a binding settlement of the proceedings. The applications were dismissed and permission to appeal was refused.

The case turns on the ordinary contract principles for deciding whether settlement negotiations have produced a binding agreement. A party who says the dispute is over must show a concluded contract, not merely correspondence that came close to one.

Mr Recorder Singer KC held at paragraph 51: "The applications are dismissed".