A new court dedicated exclusively to complex financial litigation has been unveiled in a Mansion House speech by Lord Chief Justice John Thomas.
His plans emerged as a sequel to hints he dropped at the same venue last year. On that occasion, he revealed that senior judges would explore how best to provide a faster, leaner and more cost-effective forum for resolving disputes in high finance.
Figures at the Chancery Division and the Commercial Court of the Queen’s Bench were tasked with developing a framework, which they would be jointly responsible for coordinating.
A year on, Thomas announced: “Thanks to the commitment and expertise of the judges [at those courts], we are now ready to introduce a Financial List.”
As the Lord Chief Justice explained, the service would be a specialist route for financial claims of £50m or more, or cases that raise significant issues around the domestic and international markets in equity, derivatives, FX and commodities.
With the potential for particularly challenging issues in mind, Thomas added that the List would include a provision for an innovative test-case procedure, “the aim of which will be to facilitate the resolution of market issues on which there is no previous authoritative English precedent”.
There were, Thomas said, three compelling reasons for introducing such a list:
On that last point, Thomas said: “The new Financial List – embodying these virtues – will set an international benchmark. [It] will not only encourage international litigants to continue to use our courts, the principles they embody and their jurisprudence, but in doing so they will help to raise standards. Setting the bar high here will help to raise the bar high across the world.”
Thomas also pointed out that the List’s introduction would need to go hand in hand with a systemic revolution in the workings of the judicial process.
“The most powerful force for innovation in the service of making the justice system more accessible is, at the present time, technology,” he said. “Its greater use in the justice system has long been desired, albeit that has not previously translated into acceptable action.
“As a consequence, the overhaul of our machinery of justice is long overdue… Today, we can, and must, recast much of the way in which justice is delivered.”
The revolution, he stressed, is necessary to ensure that courts and tribunals, through the use of modern technology, move out of the paper age. “Improved, more cost-effective and accessible procedures will seek to bring the justice system within the reach of everyone,” he said. “It will also help secure access to justice as a right for all, and not a privilege of the wealthy.”
Download a PDF of Thomas’s full speech. https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/speech-lcj-mansi...