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20 January 2023 / Philip Sinel
Issue: 8009 / Categories: Features , Profession , Legal services , International
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Litigating across the Channel: is it better offshore?

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What could the English court system learn from its counterparts overseas? Philip Sinel runs through some areas for improvement
  • In the courts of England and Wales, while hearings generally progress smoothly and effectively once underway, the process of getting to court in the first place can often be held up by errors and oversights.
  • On the other hand, hearings offshore tend to be slightly less uniform in approach, but in many cases they can get underway quicker, and turnover seems lower.

Being based offshore, though often litigating in England and further abroad, I have a good vantage point to compare the service of some offshore courts to those of England and Wales.

Errors abound

Our experience of the latter is that once in court, things normally progress smoothly and as expected. Progress of hearing is effective, straightforward, and generally uniform in approach.

Getting to those hearings is a different matter. Court bundles are sent to the email address so ordered, but we need

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Partner and Manchester office lead appointed head of family

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

DWF insurance services director appointed to Civil Justice Council

R3—Jodie Wildridge

R3—Jodie Wildridge

Kings Chambers barrister appointed chair of R3 Yorkshire

NEWS

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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