The Weekly Roundup: The Feline Edition

• Published date: 21 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Personal Injury
• Law Firm: 1 Chancery Lane
• Author: Mr Andrew Spencer

Today marks International Bring Your Cat to Work Day, a recipe for disaster if ever there was one, we'd have thought. The 1CL mouser is, as you'd expect, a sleekly efficient ruthless killer, but probably best kept away from laptops and remote hearings. But if we might doubt the wisdom of involving our feline friends in our work, we're absolutely delighted to welcome to this edition of the Weekly Roundup a new contributor, Ben Rodgers, who joins us from 9 Gough Chambers. Our readers are never less than fully informed, so you'll already be aware that 1 Chancery Lane and 9 Gough Chambers are soon to merge, forming what we like to think of as a Stellar Set, and in the coming weeks we will be introducing readers to our new colleagues and friends, starting with Ben.

But even with such exciting changes occurring, the courts continue with their work regardless, almost as if oblivious of the forthcoming Launch Festivities, and so it is that this week Ritchie J (formerly of 9GC, as it happens) determined (in Edwards v Slater & Gordon [2022] 5 WLUK 261) the latest hearing in the Slater & Gordon costs litigation. Briefly, he found in favour of the lay clients to the extent that he confirmed a disclosure order requiring S&G to disclose details of its retainers and associated information, and ordered the firm to answer a Part 18 Request relating to whether it had received secret commissions from insurers, but also held that S&G, whose hourly rate included an indemnity against adverse costs orders, had not entered into a contract of insurance with its clients; its retainers were contracts for legal services with a peripheral indemnity provision, and were not champertous. He also determined that disclosure should not be the norm in Part 8 proceedings for solicitor and own client costs assessments, but could be ordered under the court's case management powers if to do so was in the interests of justice. Something of a mixed bag, then, as far as S&G were concerned.

Meanwhile, over in the Commercial Court Sir Ross Cranston (who, BTW, used to be MP for Dudley North) was giving judgment in Union of India v Reliance Industries [2022] 6 WLUK 58, holding that the principle in Henderson v Henderson [1843-60] 6 All ER 378 applies to arbitration proceedings as well as litigation, and that the rule preventing a party from raising arguments which could and should have been raised in earlier proceedings is a procedural and not a substantive one. The implications for cross border litigants are...