Goodbye To The Kitchen Sink Approach? New Disclosure Rules In The Offing

Background to the Pilot

The current disclosure regime has been ripe for improvement for some time. Despite the amendments to Part 31 of the Civil Produce Rules in 2013, which saw the introduction of a menu of different disclosure options, the default position in practice still remains standard disclosure. Standard disclosure is often a costly exercise. The scale of documents that parties have to search for and review can frequently be vast. Often, parties err on the side of caution and disclose more documents than may be strictly necessary. In many cases only a small proportion of these documents are actually referred to at trial. The main driver for change is, therefore, to reduce the disproportionate time and costs associated with the current disclosure regime.