A recent order of the Court of First Instance of the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts, issued in January 2026, provides a comprehensive and authoritative exposition of the legal principles governing renewed applications for permission to appeal, the evidentiary treatment of expert testimony, and the procedural boundaries that constrain attempts to re-litigate issues already determined at trial. This analysis examines the critical lessons from this ruling on renewed permission to appeal before the DIFC Courts.
The decision is particularly significant for disputes involving personal guarantees, allegations of forgery, and challenges founded on expert handwriting evidence, as well as for litigants who seek to widen the scope of an appeal beyond the issues preserved by pleadings and prior court orders.
Case Background: A Trial Confined to a Single Issue
This background is crucial to understanding the high bar for renewed permission to appeal before the DIFC Courts.
The matter arose following a full trial in which judgment had been entered against an individual defendant for a substantial monetary sum, inclusive of interest and costs. By the time the trial commenced, proceedings against certain co-defendants had been stayed due to insolvency, and judgment had already been entered against another defendant.
As a consequence of earlier interlocutory rulings, only a single live issue remained for determination at trial, namely whether the defendant had personally signed a disputed personal guarantee. That earlier procedural order, which confined the scope of the trial, was not appealed. This fact ultimately proved decisive in the failure of the subsequent renewed permission to appeal application.
Following the trial judgment, the defendant applied for permission to appeal. That application was refused.
The defendant then pursued a renewed application for permission to appeal, invoking the procedural framework set out in RDC 44.9 and RDC 44.11. These provisions permit a further application where permission has been refused at first instance, subject to strict time limits. However, the existence of this procedural route does not dilute the substantive threshold that must be met before an appeal will be allowed to proceed.
The Legal Threshold for Permission to Appeal in the DIFC Courts
The governing standard for appellate intervention is found in RDC 44.117, which provides that an appeal may be allowed only where the decision of the Court of First Instance was wrong, or unjust due to a serious procedural or other irregularity.
This rule reflects a deliberate policy choice within the DIFC procedural regime: appeals are not intended to be opportunities for a losing party to re-argue its case but are reserved for cases involving demonstrable legal or procedural error.
This principle is reinforced by RDC 44.19, which limits permission to appeal to cases where the appeal has a real prospect of success or where some other compelling reason justifies appellate scrutiny. In the case under discussion, the applicant relied exclusively on the assertion that the appeal had a real prospect of success. This highlights the stringent test for obtaining permission to appeal in the DIFC.
At the heart of the renewed application were multiple grounds of appeal, each of which sought, in different ways, to challenge the trial judge’s conclusions regarding the authenticity of the signature on the disputed guarantee and the credibility of the expert evidence.
The Court made clear at the outset that the renewed application would be assessed afresh and independently, without reliance on the reasons given in the earlier refusal of permission to appeal. Nonetheless, the Court emphasized that the scope of its review remained circumscribed by the rules governing appeals and by the procedural history of the case.
The Trial Judge’s Evaluation of Expert Handwriting Evidence
A central feature of the judgment under appeal was the Court’s acceptance of one expert’s forensic handwriting evidence and its complete rejection of the opposing expert’s testimony.
The accepted expert had provided a detailed and methodologically transparent report, supported by microscopic analysis and recognized forensic techniques, and had explained how natural variations in a complex signature could be reconciled with authorship by a single individual. The Court was satisfied that the expert’s reasoning was coherent, consistent, and professionally sound, and that her conclusions were supported by both her written report and her oral testimony.
In contrast, the opposing expert’s evidence was found to be vague, internally inconsistent, and unsupported by a clearly articulated methodology. The Court noted significant discrepancies between that expert’s written reports and his oral evidence, as well as unexplained shifts in his account during cross-examination. These deficiencies led the trial judge to conclude that the evidence was unreliable and entitled to little or no weight.
Ground 1: Challenging the Evaluative Exercise as Legal Error
In the renewed permission to appeal application, the defendant sought to re-characterise this evaluative exercise as an error of law, arguing that the Court had failed to consider circumstantial and factual matters allegedly undermining the authenticity of the guarantee as a whole, and that it had placed excessive reliance on expert evidence relating solely to the signature.
The Court rejected this submission, observing that it fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the surviving defence and the effect of the earlier procedural order that confined the trial to the question of signature authenticity. Issues relating to the broader legitimacy of the transaction, regulatory compliance, or alleged failures of duty had either been struck out or were never properly pleaded and could not be resurrected at the appeal stage under the guise of alleged legal error.
Ground 2: Late Introduction of New Arguments
The Court further rejected arguments that it had erred by not permitting late reliance on regulatory or consumer protection principles.
The judgment under appeal expressly recorded that attempts to introduce new grounds shortly before trial, without notice or an application to amend the defence, were procedurally inappropriate. The refusal to entertain such arguments was therefore not a denial of substantive justice, but a necessary consequence of adherence to the procedural rules that ensure fairness and predictability in litigation.
The Court reiterated that compliance with pleading requirements is not a mere technicality, but a cornerstone of procedural justice.
Ground 3: Alleged Lack of Expert Independence
Another ground advanced in the renewed application concerned the alleged lack of independence attributed to the rejected expert.
The Court clarified that concerns regarding independence were not determinative in isolation but formed part of a broader assessment of the expert’s credibility and reliability. Even if formal independence could be established, the substantive flaws in the expert’s evidence—namely its inconsistency, lack of methodological clarity, and evasiveness under cross-examination—were sufficient to justify its rejection.
The Court emphasized that appellate review does not involve substituting a different evaluative judgment for that of the trial judge, absent a clear error.
Ground 4: The Judge’s Role in Examining Evidence
The defendant also argued that the trial judge ought to have personally examined the disputed signature and that failure to do so amounted to an error. This submission was dismissed in unequivocal terms.
The Court reaffirmed that it is not the role of a judge to conduct forensic analysis; that task lies squarely within the domain of expert witnesses. The judicial function is to assess the credibility and cogency of expert evidence, not to replicate the technical examination undertaken by specialists.
The Court further noted that demanding identical signatures or exhaustive comparison with every known signature betrays a misunderstanding of forensic handwriting analysis, which focuses on natural similarities, fluency, and continuity rather than exact replication.
Ground 5: The Overriding Objective and Procedural Fairness
Finally, the defendant invoked the Overriding Objective under RDC 1.6, alleging that the Court’s procedural strictness deprived him of a fair opportunity to present his case.
The Court rejected this contention, holding that the Overriding Objective does not entitle parties to disregard procedural orders, expand their case at will, or avoid the consequences of strategic choices made during litigation. On the contrary, the disciplined management of proceedings, including the confinement of issues and enforcement of pleading rules, is an expression of the Overriding Objective, not a departure from it.
Key Takeaways on Appellate Finality and Procedure in the DIFC
In concluding that none of the grounds advanced had any prospect of success, the Court underscored a fundamental principle of DIFC appellate practice: finality matters. The ruling solidifies the strict framework governing a renewed application for permission to appeal.
A party who elects not to appeal interlocutory orders, who chooses not to give oral evidence, or who relies on deficient expert testimony cannot later seek to undo those decisions through a renewed application for permission to appeal. The appellate framework is designed to correct genuine errors, not to provide a second opportunity to run a different case.
This decision therefore stands as a clear reaffirmation of the DIFC Courts’ commitment to procedural discipline, rigorous evaluation of expert evidence, and the high threshold governing appellate intervention.
For litigants and practitioners alike, it serves as a reminder that success on appeal begins with careful pleading, strategic decision-making, and robust evidence at first instance, because the scope for revisiting those matters later is deliberately and rightly constrained.
Authors:
