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Enforcement: Squaring the circle

10 October 2025 / HHJ Karen Walden-Smith
Issue: 8134 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Legal services
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Without enforcement, judgments are worthless. HHJ Karen Walden-Smith sets out the Civil Justice Council’s recommendations to improve effectiveness & efficiency
  • In March 2025, a working group from the Civil Justice Council published a report on the enforcement of judgments. This article discusses the work of the group and its findings.
  • The report highlights areas for reform, with 39 recommendations, including making enforcement more effective, better protecting the vulnerable, and creating a single unified digital enforcement court.

Enforcement can never be said to be at the racier end of civil litigation, and for far too long it has been overlooked as an area for consideration or reform. Since the 1980s, reforms—from Woolf and Jackson and the Briggs Civil Courts Structure Review 2016 to the HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) Reform programme—have aimed to make civil litigation more efficient. While enforcement was considered by Lord Briggs, he did not have the remit to deal with this issue in detail. The last major reforms were contained in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement

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NEWS
NLJ columnist Stephen Gold dives into the quirks of civil practice, from the Court of Appeal’s fierce defence of form N510 to fresh reminders about compliance and interest claims, in this week's Civil Way
Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB) has restated a fundamental truth, writes John Gould, chair of Russell-Cooke, in this week's NLJ: only authorised persons can conduct litigation. The decision sparked alarm, but Gould stresses it merely confirms the Legal Services Act 2007
The government’s decision to make the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) the Single Professional Services Supervisor marks a watershed in the UK’s fight against money laundering, says Rebecca Hughes of Corker Binning in this week's NLJ. The FCA will now oversee 60,000 firms across legal and accountancy sectors—a massive expansion of remit that raises questions over resources and readiness 
The High Court's decision in Parfitt v Jones [2025] EWHC 1552 (Ch) provided a striking reminder of the need to instruct the right expert in retrospective capacity assessments, says Ann Stanyer of Wedlake Bell in NLJ this week
Paige Coulter of Quinn Emanuel reports on the UK’s first statutory definition of SLAPPs under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023in NLJ this week
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