Reorganisation will give English civil courts more flexibility, says expert

The changes, which are due to take effect in June, are "clearly not simply a re-branding exercise", according to commercial litigation expert Andrew Herring of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.

"It is clear that there is substance behind this development, which is aimed at maintaining this jurisdiction at the forefront of international dispute resolution and improving High Court case management," he said. "It will be very interesting to see what procedural changes will be published in the next few months to explain how the new system will work in practice from June of this year."

From June, all the specialist civil courts and lists of the High Court will operate under the umbrella of 'The Business and Property Courts of England and Wales'. This new designation will bring together the Commercial Court, including the Admiralty Court; the Technology and Construction Court; and the various courts of the Chancery Division, including Financial Services, Intellectual Property, Competition and Insolvency cases.

The new arrangements will preserve the "familiar practices and procedures" and staffing arrangements of the existing courts, while making it easier for judges with suitable expertise and experience to sit on appropriate cases regardless of where they are heard. Currently, judges who are experts in a particular area of law cannot easily sit on cases if they are scheduled in another court, even if the dispute is within their area of expertise.

Business and Property Courts will also be set up in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Cardiff, with further courts planned for Newcastle and Liverpool in the future. This will "enhance the connection between the specialist business and property work undertaken in the regions and in London", according to the judiciary. In London, all the specialist courts already operate out of the same building, the Rolls Building.

"This development will give effect to one of the key principles underpinning Lord Justice Briggs' civil courts structure review, and it is a significant and timely boost to the regional civil courts," said Herring.

"It is telling that this development has been endorsed expressly by some of the judiciary's most senior figures. This shows a commitment to this change at the highest level of the judiciary and government. We will need to wait to see how this development is implemented, but these endorsements should give regional businesses every confidence that there is no case that is too big to be resolved in their local civil justice centres, as opposed to the current tendency to issue claims in London," he said.

The main practical advantage of the changes will be the courts' new flexibility to deploy judges in different courts without being restricted by the traditional divisions of the High Court, Herring said.

"The judiciary gives the example of highly expert competition law judges in the Queen's Bench Division currently finding it difficult to sit on the bulk of competition law cases that take place either in the chancery division or in the Competition Appeals Tribunal," he said.

"The new and progressive arrangement will enable judges from across the existing divisions of the High Court to sit more easily on a wide range of business and property related disputes without diluting the requirement for specialist judges to determine specialist cases. The added flexibility created by the cross-deployment of judges should reduce the litigation timeframe and accelerate High Court hearing listings. This is to be welcomed, as in principle, shorter litigation ought to result in reduced litigation costs," he said.

Sir Brian Leveson, who is the current president of the Queen's Bench Division, said that the specialist 'financial list', which operates across both the chancery and Queen's Bench divisions, had "demonstrated the real value of flexible deployment in appropriate cases".

"This development will be of benefit both to the courts and the users of the courts," he said.