Amendment

SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2010] EWHC 3012 (Ch) 22 November

The defendant submitted that (1) the court had no jurisdiction to vary an order for reference once sealed unless there had been a material change of circumstances since the order or it had subsequently emerged that the court had made the order on a false basis, neither of which conditions were satisfied in the present case; (2) even if the court had such jurisdiction, it should exercise its discretion by refusing to do so because the application was made too late and because there was no sufficient justification for the amendments. The claimant submitted that the court could still exercise the general power conferred by CPR 3.1(7) to vary or revoke its own order and the CPR PD 68 para 1.1 meant that orders for references were not subject to the usual constraints on orders made purely between the parties.