Will the streamlining of appeal procedure make England and Wales a more or less attractive forum for litigation than it is now, ask Michael Roberts & Giles Hutt
In May 2016 the Civil Procedure Rules Committee (CPRC) published a consultation paper containing proposals aimed at streamlining the appeal process and reducing the time it takes for cases to reach the Court of Appeal. Responses were called for by 24 June, just five weeks after the consultation opened, and the resulting new rules (CPR Pt 52) were published the following month. They will come into force on 3 October 2016.
Given the importance of the appeal process, it is disappointing that stakeholders were not allowed more time to respond to the CPRC’s proposals, which appeared to have been blessed already by the Court of Appeal at a conference on 11 March 2016. However, the problems they address are serious and urgent: hear-by targets had to be extended in July 2015, and delays are increasing all the time. The proposals were in any case well thought through,
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