Royal Courts of Justice, Rolls Building
Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1NL
Before :
HIS HONOUR JUDGE HACON
Between :
CRANFORD COMMUNITY COLLEGE | Claimant |
- and - | |
CRANFORD COLLEGE LIMITED | Defendant |
Ian Silcock (instructed by Winckworth Sherwood LLP) for the Claimant
Jonathan Hill (instructed by Chauhan Solicitors) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 17 February 2014
Judgment
Judge Hacon :
An issue on disclosure has arisen in a case management conference before me today. The Claimant seeks an unless order to deal with the Defendant having declined to serve a disclosure report pursuant to CPR rule 31.5(3), i.e. an order that the Defence is struck out and judgment entered in favour of the Claimant unless the Defendant serves a disclosure report within 3 days.
Disclosure reports were introduced into civil litigation by the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2013 as part of the significant reforms as to costs. The relevant rules came into force on 1 April 2013. CPR rule 31.5(2) states that paragraphs (3) to (8) of CPR rule 31.(5), which set out the detailed requirements relating to disclosure reports, apply to all multi-track claims other than those which include a claim for personal injuries.
Claims in this court, other than those allocated to the small claims track, are multi-track claims. On the other hand, CPR 63.24(2), which pre-dates CPR 31.5(2), states that the provisions on standard disclosure in CPR Part 31 did not apply in the Patents County Court and thus since 1 October 2013 they do not apply in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. The question is whether the general requirement of CPR 31.5(2), that disclosure reports should be provided in all multi-track claims, applies in the IPEC.
In my judgment it does not. The rules on disclosure reports are part of the rules on standard disclosure as is made explicit in the final sentence of the note explaining them in the White Book at 31.5.1. This is reinforced by the possibility provided for in CPR 31.5(7)(e) that a court may order that a party gives standard disclosure as one of the options under new rules. That possibility is not consistent with paragraph 29.1 of Practice Direction 63 which permits the IPEC to order only specific disclosure, if disclosure is to be ordered at all.
Consequently CPR 31.5 does not apply in the IPEC in its current form any more than it did in the old form. There is no obligation to provide disclosure reports in the IPEC.