The Issue
The Supreme Court in Takhar v Gracefield Developments established that where a judgment is alleged to have been obtained by fraud, and where the party alleging fraud could not with reasonable diligence have discovered the fraud before the judgment, the judgment can be set aside. The proper evidential route to proving the fraud must have been available. Where disclosure is refused and expert evidence excluded, the evidential route is not available — and the absence of completed proof cannot be used to close the Takhar gateway.
The Law: How It Should Operate
Takhar v Gracefield Developments Ltd [2019] UKSC 13 — a judgment obtained by fraud on the court can be set aside even if the party could have raised the fraud in the original proceedings, provided they did not in fact know of it. The power to set aside for fraud on the court is an inherent jurisdiction that cannot be ousted by procedural finality. Finality cannot protect a determination produced by the very fraud alleged. The court has power and duty to investigate where fraud is properly alleged.
How It Operated in Lawrence v HNW Lending Ltd
The Applicants' case was closed as final before the fraud was capable of being proved through the proper evidential route. The absence of completed proof — caused by the refusal of disclosure, the exclusion of expert evidence and the absence of cross-examination — was treated as defeat on the merits. The Takhar safeguard — which exists precisely for this situation — was structurally inverted: the inability to prove fraud without the withheld tools was treated as proof that there was no fraud.
"The question is not whether one court reached one adverse result. It is that the same failure of protection recurred across courts, tribunals, administration, policing and oversight — making the pattern visible only because the case passed through so many forums."
— Open Letter to the Lord Chancellor, 15 May 2026