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Report
and Recommendations of the Commercial Court Long
Trials Working Party
Read
the full report here
July
2008 Update: The
trial period continues. The Commercial Court
Users' Committee has asked for feedback by September
2008 on how the recommendations are working
in practice. LSLA members are invited to
contact Simon
Davis with their views so that a response
can be prepared for submission by the deadline.
The
LSLA was delighted to contribute two members to
the Working Party - Simon Davis and Graham Huntley.
The
Working Party was set up following the symposium
organised by the Commercial Court in October 2006
to capture views and opinions on whether and to
what extent the management of heavy and complex
trials should be changed in the light of experiences
in some recent large cases, in particular the
BCCI and Equitable Life cases.
The
Working Party believes that it has risen to this
challenge by identifying a range of new proposals
and arrangements to deal with each stage of litigation
starting with the pre-action protocol regime and
concluding with the management of trials and resources
of the judiciary to manage the cases throughout
the process. The Working Party's report deals
with each stage of litigation and sets out recommendations
for each of them.
The
recommendations were adopted unanimously by the
Commercial Court Users' Committee on 20 November
2007. They will be put into practice in the Commercial
Court for a trial period running from 1 February
to 31 July 2008. The Judges of the Court will
then decide whether the recommendations should
be adopted permanently, either in whole or in
part. In the meantime, all practitioners are expected
to adopt the arrangements in full.
The
Working Party was chaired by Mr Justice Richard
Aikens and its membership drew from other relevant
constituencies including other members of the
Commercial Court (Mrs Justice Gloster), barristers
and senior client representatives. The Working
Party also received considerable input from other
individuals, and the LSLA was able to offer broader
views and opinions drawn from its Committee and
firms represented on that Committee. In the LSLA's
case, it also had the benefit of considerable
acquired knowledge and interaction with its members
in the light of previous relevant consultation
exercises.
With
the benefit of such input the Working Party was
able to look deeply at concerns that had been
expressed at the symposium that there was some
fundamental flaw in the procedures or methods
in the Commercial Court . The Working Party addressed
each stage of litigation and concluded that there
was no such flaw. However, it was clear that many
of the procedures currently employed for managing
large and complex litigation needed to be reconsidered
with a view to ensuring that they remain relevant,
efficient and appropriate in the interests of
clients whose business is at the root of the service
offered by the Commercial Court . A particular
concern of the Working Party was that cases were
becoming "longer and more complex",
particularly through the length of statements
of case and the extent of disclosure, and consequently
large case management needed to be more efficient
and effective in its operation.
Recent
Press
Our president,
David Greene, and the LSLA have attracted some
press recently including:
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