Civil Procedure Rules Update 47 – October 2008

The revised part 6 regime for service of documents

In the conjoined appeals of Collier v Williams; Marshall & Rankine v Maggs; Leeson v Marsden; Glass v Surrendran [2006] EWCA Civ 20, the Court of Appeal considered four cases that gave rise to a number of issues relating to the service of the claim form. In his judgment, Dyson LJ noted that it had become clear that Part 6 (the rules relating to service) and Rule 7.6 (the rule relating to the extending of time for service of the claim form) have not fulfilled the Woolf Reform aims of being simple and straightforward and avoiding frequent satellite litigation. Therefore, the Civil Procedure Rule Committee conducted a review of the rules relating to service and, following consultation in 2007, the CPR have been revised to create a simpler regime for service of documents. Many of the rules do remain the same, but there are a number of important differences.