Proposals for a new Practice Direction and Appendix governing the preparation of witness statements for trials in the Business and Property Courts have been prepared by the Witness Evidence Working Group and published to attendees of the recent Commercial Court 125 virtual seminar. The proposals include a new authoritative statement of best practice, as well … Read more

The judiciary has today published an Update on the operation of the Disclosure Pilot Scheme which has been operating in the Business and Property Courts since 1 January 2019 and is set to continue until the end of 2021 following a recent extension. The update includes publication of the Third Interim Report on the pilot … Read more

The High Court has construed a claimant’s offer as compliant with CPR Part 36 where it stated that the “relevant period” ran for 21 days from the date of the offer letter, rather than 21 days from the date the offer was made as required by the rules: Essex County Council v UBB Waste (Essex) … Read more

In a recent decision, the High Court declined to strike out a claim against a bank for alleged breach of a Quincecare duty on the ground that the claimant had suffered no loss: Stanford International Bank Ltd v HSBC Bank plc [2020] EWHC 2232 (Ch). The claimant (SIB) was an insolvent Ponzi scheme. Its liquidators brought proceedings … Read more

In a judgment handed down last Friday, 11 September, the Commercial Court in London confirmed that communications with the claimant’s Russian in-house lawyers were privileged as a matter of English law, and there was no need for the court to enquire into the applicable systems of regulation or professional standards under Russian law: PJSC Tatneft … Read more

The High Court has today handed down judgment in the COVID-19 Business Interruption insurance test case of The Financial Conduct Authority v Arch and Others. Herbert Smith Freehills represented the FCA (who was advancing the claim for policyholders) in the case, which considered 21 lead sample wordings from eight insurers. Following expedited proceedings, the judgment … Read more

Tomorrow marks an important day for international dispute resolution as the Singapore Mediation Convention comes into force, just over a year after its signing ceremony on 7 August 2019.  More formally known as the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, the new Convention aims to establish a global enforcement regime for settlement … Read more

Recent posts on our Civil Fraud and Asset Tracing Notes blog highlight two interesting decisions on freezing injunctions. In the first, the Court of Appeal clarified that, in the absence of an established pattern of trading, expenditure pursuing a fledgling business is unlikely to fall within the “ordinary and proper course of business” exception to … Read more