The High Court this week ordered the firm to answer Part 18 requests for information from former personal injury clients Rhys Edwards and Wayne Raubenheimer.
Mr Justice Ritchie said the claimant’s ‘desire for answers from the defendant as to the secret commissions allegedly paid by a certain ATE insurer (now in liquidation) as a result of the ATE policy taken out in his personal injury claim by the defendant on his behalf’ lay at the root of the case. Ruling in the conjoined cases, Edwards v Slater and Gordon [2022] EWHC 1091 (QB), he overturned an earlier judge’s decision that the firm was within its rights in refusing to provide the information.
Ritchie J ordered that the part 18 requests be answered so ‘the judge can get a proper grasp of the issues, the claimants can determine whether there is anything to worry about, or whether it is all a storm in a teacup, and the defendant can consider whether to fight or settle the claims for alleged secret commissions’.
NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan, of City Law School, said: ‘This is but the opening bout in what may prove to be protracted litigation.
‘Should the claimants in the intended test cases succeed, floodgates could open wide. It could prove to be very expensive indeed.
‘Mr Justice Ritchie has 35 years of injury experience and is absolutely on top of the subject. To deliver such a thorough judgment in a fortnight is quite astonishing.’
