Disclosure

A High Court judge has strongly criticised a City partner who gave a journalist a copy of a witness statement made in support of an application for pre-action disclosure.

A party’s claim to legal advice privilege over two internal emails has been rejected by the High Court, which has also ordered a privileged document disclosed by mistake destroyed.

The Civil Procedure Rule Committee has given its final approval to the two-year disclosure pilot scheme for cases in the Business & Property Courts. Subject to ministerial approval, the pilot will commence on 1 January 2019.

Civil Procedure Rules Committee last week gave its ‘in principle’ approval to the disclosure working group’s proposals being piloted next year, it has emerged. The pilot will operate from 1 January 2019 in the Business and Property Courts and last for two years.

Witness statements are likely to be the next focus for reform after disclosure, the new president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association has predicted. Julian Acratopulo, head of international commercial litigation at Clifford Chance, said that, like disclosure, both lawyers and the judiciary were ready to reconsider the current system.

The City law firm that won the first contested application to use predictive coding as part of a substantial document review exercise has proclaimed the exercise a success and a precursor to its wider use after its client won.

The Law Society has warned that radical disclosure reforms, due to be piloted in the Business and Property Courts this autumn, could lead to important documents not coming to light and “increase the risk of miscarriages of justice”.

Professional negligence claims will become harder to handle under the new approach to disclosure which will be piloted later this year in the Business & Property Courts, particularly for defendants, a barrister has warned. She identified front-loading of costs, imbalance between the parties, and disclosure of adverse documents as potential problems.

An attempt to claim litigation privilege by global mining and commodities giant Glencore, in a case where it was not the party to proceedings, has been rejected by the High Court. It said there was no authority for the proposition that “a person controlling litigation can assert litigation privilege against a party which it is controlling and who is the party to the proceedings”.

A High Court judge has ordered a manual search of tens of thousands of documents in a $65m breach of warranty case because of concerns over the claimants’ approach to computer-assisted review. Mr Justice Coulson said disclosure had been “something of a running sore in this case”.