A timely reminder on litigation disclosure requirements

A decision last week by the United Kingdom Supreme Court on when a final judgment may be set aside because a party failed to disclose relevant information provides a timely reminder of the importance in litigation of properly locating and disclosing all relevant documents.

The case

The case1 is the latest in the long-running litigation concerning the rights of Chagos Islanders to return to the homeland from which they were evicted in 1973.

At issue was whether a 2008 judgment2 of the House of Lords, which upheld the validity of a 2004 rule prohibiting the Islanders from returning, should be set aside due to a "culpable" but not deliberate failure to disclose a draft of the expert report on which the UK government relied in making the 2004 rule.

The draft had been requested but could not be found prior to the House of...