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City trends

29 October 2009 / Jonathan Pratt
Issue: 7391 / Categories: Features , Company , Commercial
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Jonathan Pratt provides a statistical analysis of recent trends in City litigation

Every year, the Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on judicial and court activity. This year’s stats are analysed in this article which:
Reviews the figures for the past decade and considers the impact of the Woolf Reforms on litigation in the City of London.

Focuses on the statistics for 2008, which were published last month, to see whether the credit crunch has resulted in a rise in litigation.

Considers the figures for the now defunct Appellate Committee of the House of Lords in an attempt to to identify any trends that will be relevant to the newly created UK Supreme Court.

The impact of Woolf 

Figure 1 below shows that the aftermath of the Woolf Reforms and the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) saw a significant reduction in claims issued in the Royal Courts of Justice (from 30,251 in 1999 to 22,634 in 2002).

The decline was most striking in the Queen’s Bench Division, where the number of claims issued

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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