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Practice Directions

Case Management Conferences


Guidance note on circumstances in which the Court will consider dispensing with an oral hearing

1. The general rule in the Commercial Court, as the Commercial and Admiralty Courts Guide makes clear, is that there must be an oral Case Management Conference (CMC) at court.

2. However, there are cases which are out of the ordinary where it may be possible to dispense with an oral hearing if the issues are straightforward and the costs of an oral hearing cannot be justified.

3. In such a case, if the parties wish to ask the Court to consider holding the CMC on paper, they must lodge all the appropriate documents by no later than 12 noon on the Tuesday of the week in which the CMC is fixed for the Friday. That timing will be strictly enforced. If all the papers are not provided by that time, the CMC must be expected to go forward to an oral hearing. If the failure to lodge the papers is due to the fault of one party and it is for that reason an oral CMC takes place, that party will be at risk as to costs.

4. With the papers (which will include the Case Management bundle with the information sheets fully completed by each party), the parties must lodge:
A draft Order (agreed by the parties) for consideration by the Judge

A statement signed by each advocate:

i. confirming that the parties have considered and discussed all the relevant issues and brought to the Court's attention anything that was unusual.

ii. setting out information about any steps that had been taken to resolve the dispute by ADR, any future plans for ADR or an explanation as to why ADR would not be appropriate.

5. In the ordinary course of things it would be unlikely that any case involving expert evidence or preliminary issues would be suitable for a CMC on paper. In cases involving expert evidence, the Court is anxious to give particular scrutiny to that evidence, given the cost such evidence usually involves and the need to focus that evidence. In cases where preliminary issues are sought, the Court will need to examine the formulation of those issues and discuss whether they are really appropriate.

29 November 2002



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