PracticeWrit - inordinate and inexcusable delay by claimant ignoring solicitors' advice - action to be struck out as abuse of processHabib Bank Ltd v Jaffer andanother: CA (Nourse, Ward and Hale LJJ): 29 March 2000

In 1990 the claimant, a Pakistani bank, lent money to a company and obtained personal guarantees for the loans from the defendants.

In 1992, demands under the guarantees remaining unsatisfied, the bank began proceedings claiming 25m from the defendants.In 1998 the defendants applied for the action to be struck out for want of prosecution.A master granted the application.

The judge allowed the bank's appeal on the ground that its inordinate and inexcusable delay did not amount to an abuse of process.The defendants appealed.Bernard Eder QC and David da Silva (instructed by Devonshires) for the first defendant.

David Melville (instructed by Payne Hicks Beach) for the second defendant.

Alastair MacGregor QC and David Turner (instructed by Lane & Partners) for the bank.Held, allowing the appeal and ordering the action be struck out, that the evidence showed that due to the political situation in Pakistan the bank was in a state of near-paralysis for some time and it had repeatedly ignored the advise from its London solicitors to comply with the rules of court and had failed to give any proper instructions to its solicitors; that such conduct was entirely the fault of the bank and constituted an affront to the court amounting to an abuse of process; and that the only fair result was for the action to be struck out.