Admissibility of deleted words as aid to construction

This article was produced by Nabarro LLP, which joined CMS on 1 May 2017.

A recent Court of Appeal decision approved the decision in Mopani Copper Mines plc v Millennium Underwriting Ltd that the court may take into account deleted words which have been removed by modification: "the relevant principle is that if the fact of deletion shows what it is the parties agreed that they did not agree and there is ambiguity in the words that remain, then the deleted provision may be an aid to construction, albeit one that must be used with care." Narandas-Girdhar and another v Bradstock