Pleadings: Please, Please Tell Me Now, Is There Something I Should Know?

The commercial world generates enormous amounts of information. Transactions produce great quantities of documentation, helped by the incontinent use of email and electronic communication. When disputes arise, there is usually a great deal of material to sift through. But the complexity of the subject matter does not give lawyers license to expand their pleadings commensurately.

The English courts have issued clear warnings against the ever increasing length of statements of case. Recently, Mr Justice Leggatt sent a powerful reminder, lest anyone had forgotten how much judges dislike a verbose party, in Tchenguiz & Others v Grant Thornton UK LLP & Others [2015] EWHC 405 (Comm). The claimant's legal team has had to go back to the drawing board because the statement of claim was simply too long. This article looks at how English courts control statements of case in commercial claims, and considers the role of so-called 'pleadings' in English civil litigation.