Pressure on the TCC could be relieved if parties stayed out of town, Editor Nick Barrett finds a senior judge has advised.
Technology and Construction Court Judge Stephen Davies has advised parties to consider issuing claims in regional Technology and Construction Courts where appropriate rather than overburdening the London TCC.
In his decision on the part 8 claim in the case of Workman Properties Limited, claimant, and defendant ADI Building and Refurbishment Limited, he added that Paragraph 2.3(1) of Practice Direction 57AA – Business and Property Courts, states that before a claimant issues a claim in the Business and Property Courts it must determine the appropriate location in which to issue the claim. Sub-paragraph (2) states that claims which are intended to be issued in the Business and Property Courts and which have significant links to a particular circuit outside London (or anywhere else in the South Eastern Circuit) must be issued in the Business and Property Court District Registry located in the circuit in question. If a claim has significant links with more than one circuit, the claim should be issued in the location with which the claim has the most significant links.
The dispute being considered was about a construction project at a dairy in Tewkesbury, which is where the claimant company is based. The defendant company is based in Birmingham. The claimant’s solicitors are also based in Birmingham. The defendant’s solicitors are a national firm, with offices in Birmingham as well as London, where the fee-earners are apparently based.
“One of the consequences of the success of the London TCC,” Judge Davies said, “is that listings for one day Part 8 claims such as the present, which do not fall into the category of adjudication applications which are to be expedited, are at a premium, so that some delay in listing them for final hearing is inevitable.”
The same is true of any directions hearing which may be required in relation to such claims. By contrast, both the Birmingham TCC and the Bristol TCC are, due to their less heavy workload, able to list such claims for final hearing, and for interlocutory directions hearing where required, within a much shorter timeframe.
He said that the Practice Direction states that a link to a particular circuit is established where one or more of the parties has its address or registered office in the circuit in question; or at least one of the witnesses expected to give oral evidence at trial or other hearing is located in the circuit (in this case one witness was based in Gloucestershire and others were based in Birmingham); or, the dispute occurred in a location within the circuit; or, the dispute concerns land, goods or other assets located in the circuit; or the parties’ legal representatives are based in the circuit.
“Had the claimant’s legal representatives had regard to this guidance they could and should have issued this claim in either the Birmingham or the Bristol TCC. Had they done so then they would almost certainly have had the Part 8 claim finally determined well before the second adjudication decision was promulgated. Issuing claims in the most appropriate TCC location also has the benefit of reducing the workload of the London TCC and, thus, enabling cases which ought properly to proceed there being determined more speedily,” he added.
Nick Barrett
Editor