England and Wales High Court (Commercial Court) Decisions

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS & PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
COMMERCIAL COURT (KBD)
FINANCIAL LIST

		7 Rolls Building Fetter Lane London, EC4A 1NL
		9 June 2023

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1. MR JUSTICE PICKEN: I am now dealing with post judgment interest.
2. Ms Prevezer invites me either to apply the Judgments Act rate of 8%, albeit she recognises that that is not directly applicable given that the judgment is in a foreign currency.
3. Her primary position, however, is that I should consider a higher rate through essentially application of the same approach as I adopted in my last ruling, when arriving at an uplifted pre-judgment interest rate of Euribor plus 2% plus 3%, in other words 5% over Euribor.
4. I am not persuaded that it is appropriate to do that.
5. It is clear from the authorities, in particular Barnett, to which I have previously referred (at [13]) and Novoship UK v Nikitin [2014] EWCA Civ 908 as referred to in the Barnett case, that the appropriate approach at the post-judgment stage is to have regard to the compensatory principle.
6. Having regard to that and bearing in mind what I had to say in my judgment concerning interest, it seems to me that the right approach is to apply no uplift and to maintain Euribor plus 2%.
7. Ms Prevezer notes that such an approach, in contrast to an uplifted interest rate, provides no incentive to the Republic to make payment on a speedy basis. However, that is not, from what I can detect, the appropriate approach. The appropriate approach is to have regard to the compensatory principle and, on that basis, I do not consider that a further uplift is warranted.
8. I should say that it is common ground that what I cannot do is merely apply the Part 36 uplift in a context now which is different to the Part 36 context, namely post-judgment, where whatever should or should not have been done as regards the Part 36 offer, is the past. What is now our focus is the post-judgment context.