SENIOR judges are hosting a top-level summit with the City to thrash out reforms that will prevent lengthy trials such as the recent BCCI litigation against the Bank of England.

In the wake of the blistering attack by Mervyn King, the Bank’s Governor, an unprecedented meeting next month on how such costly and longrunning trials may be avoided is to be held by the Lord Chief Justice and High Court judges specialising in trade disputes.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the most senior judge in England and Wales, may chair the summit, which will involve users of the commercial court, including representatives of the Bank of England. The move comes about after Mr King condemned the BCCI litigation as “the most expensive fishing expedition in history” and the legal system as nothing more than a “profitable monopoly”.

The hope is that a blueprint for reform will emerge that will cut drastically the length of such cases and prevent their recurrence.

The judges and City businessmen are expected to focus on procedural reforms: active case management, time limits on opening and closing speeches, as well as on cross-examination and possibly a bar on cases going to the House of Lords when both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have ruled one way.

The idea of moving to a more inquisitorial system has also been floated but is not likely to be popular with judges.

In a recent interview with The Times, Mr Justice Aikens, a senior commercial court judge who is in charge of plans for a new commercial or business court, said that he was against any change to an inquisitorial system, which would only prove costlier than present procedures. “If a judge has to do all the work now done by counsel, it will be less efficient, more costly and need twice as many judges,” he said.

The discussions are expected to last a day. Solicitors and interested parties have been invited to submit their opinions and suggestions in writing early next month.

The 13-year saga of BCCI litigation was the most expensive case in English legal history. It came to a surprise end last November when the liquidators of BCCI withdrew their case and left the courtroom.

Parties involved in the case were criticised for collecting millions of pounds in fees during the course of the trial. While the liquidators of BCCI earned $325 million (£174 million) in fees, Gordon Pollock, QC, their lead barrister, was paid a brief fee of £3 million.

The £700 million lawsuit by the Equitable Life Society against Ernst & Young, dropped after more than 5½ years in court, is another “super-case” that will be discussed next month.

Mark Hapgood, QC, who represented the accounting firm, then described the decision as “the biggest climbdown in English legal history”.

COURTING CONTROVERSY

BCCI’s liquidators v the Bank of England:

Gordon Pollock, QC, lead counsel for Deloitte, was paid £3 million

Equitable Life Society v Ernst & Young:

Equitable stuns court by withdrawing the case in September 2005

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