Extension of time: the court's discretion

Henshaw J in a lengthy and comprehensive judgment in Hays v Bloomfield Investments LLC [2022] EWHC 1648 (Comm) has considered the circumstances in which a failure to bring an appeal against an arbitration award within the 28 days permitted by section 70(3) of the Arbitration Act 1996 should be excused by the grant of an extension of time under section 80(5).

The case involved a "rolled up" application in which the application for extension was a part of the application for relief, so that the court was able to consider the merits of the application in more detail than would be the case in a simple extension application. However, given the extreme facts of the case, it is doubtful whether that procedural point affected the outcome.