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Report and Recommendations of the Commercial Court Long Trials Working Party
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.
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