IN AN unprecedented move, the country’s most senior judges and lawyers yesterday gathered to discuss a shake-up in the conduct of commercial cases in the aftermath of the 13-year BCCI litigation against the Bank of England.

According to a senior litigation lawyer who attended the discussion, a working party will now consider possible changes to rules governing management of cases.

Lawyers advocated the introduction of the US-style practice of assigning judges to supervise a case for its lifetime. There was also a call for for more “interventionist” case management by the judiciary, who should be less reluctant to throw out weak cases, according to another lawyer present at the discussion.

The talks were influenced by an admission this April by Justice Tomlinson, the trial judge in the BCCI litigation, that he and Lord Woolf, then Lord Chief Justice, concluded that there was “nothing which could usefully be done” to halt it. The statement stunned the legal community, fueling a debate over the length and cost of “super-cases” at the High Court.

These cases had called into question the efficacy of the Woolf reforms, introduced in 1999 in an attempt to cut costs and red tape.

Last November, the High Court saw the collapse of the most expensive case in English legal history. The liquidators of Bank of Credit and Commerce International fought an acrimonious battle against the Bank of England, only to withdraw their claim in a surprise move.

Another case raising similar questions was the lawsuit by Equitable Life against Ernst & Young, withdrawn in September 2005 after five years. Lawyers even said that the cases could damage London’s reputation as a global centre for commercial litigation.

The meeting at Arundel House, near the Royal Courts of Justice, was invitation-only, attended by fewer than a hundred solicitors, QCs and judges.

“It was really a gathering of the great and good,” according to a litigator who was present. “The most encouraging thing was the fact that the court, in the shape of judges, was talking to lawyers and users.

“It points the way to a means for better case management in the future if judges can sit down with the lawyers on both sides and even clients.”

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, and Sir Anthony Clarke, the Master of the Rolls, were accompanied by commercial barristers, such as Nicholas Stadlen QC, who defended the Bank of England in the BCCI litigation. A spokesman for the Lord Chief Justice declined to comment last night.

GRINDING WHEELS

BCCI’s liquidators v Bank of England

£73 million: Bank of England’s legal fees

£1 billion: claim initially filed by liquidators

256 days: time spent in court for the trial

13 years: length of the case

Equitable Life Society v Ernst & Young

£2.6 billion: initial claim against Ernst & Young

£700 million: final size of damages claim

5 years 9 months: length of the case

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