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About Dispute Resolution

Trying to get to grips with the law underlying your dispute? Looking at trying to settle? Puzzled by costs and funding reforms? Out of your depth on jurisdiction issues?

Civil litigation costs and funding

Make use of our costs recovery toolkit, precedents practice notes, and completing costs budget checklist. As well as funding arrangements guidance, principles of costs recovery, costs budgeting and management.

Starting and progressing a civil claim

Choose from checklists, practice notes, flowcharts and precedents to help you understand and apply to your practice to all relevant provisions and obligations – and avoid consequences for non-compliance.

Starting and progressing a civil claim

Checklists and practice notes on areas like debt claims, corporate disputes, and civil fraud to make sure you’re familiar with the particular procedural provisions governing a dispute and the underlying substantive law.

Dispute Resolution Guidance

Trying to get to grips with the law underlying your dispute? Looking at trying to settle? Puzzled by costs and funding reforms? Out of your depth on jurisdiction issues?

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Associated legal terms

Agreed statement of facts

An agreed statement of facts is a document jointly prepared by the parties that records the material facts not in dispute for a hearing, trial, sentencing or appeal. It streamlines case management by narrowing the issues, avoiding unnecessary evidence, reducing costs and time, and assisting the judge or tribunal.

The term is a descriptive practice expression rather than a defined statutory term. In England and Wales and Northern Ireland, agreed facts operate as admissions: once filed or stated on the record, they generally require no proof and cannot be withdrawn without the court’s permission (consistent with the regimes on formal admissions in criminal and civil procedure, including Criminal Justice Act 1967, Criminal Procedure Rules and notices to admit). In Scotland, the functional equivalent is a joint minute of admissions in both civil and criminal proceedings, which, when lodged, binds the parties as to the admitted facts. In Ireland, Superior Courts practice (notably in the Commercial List) often directs a statement of agreed facts and issues; agreed facts are treated as admissions and stand in place of evidence.

Typical features include concise, numbered factual propositions, confined to facts (not law or argument), signed by legal representatives and filed or lodged for inclusion in the trial bundle or hearing papers. Usage is broadly consistent across the UK and Ireland.

Electronic copy

A copy of an electronic document.

Multiplicity of actions

Multiplicity of actions describes a situation where substantially the same dispute is pursued through two or more sets of legal proceedings, often in different courts or between overlapping parties. It commonly arises where parallel claims, duplicative proceedings or fragmented litigation risk inconsistent judgments, wasted costs and inefficient use of court resources.

In the UK and Ireland, “multiplicity of actions” is generally a descriptive expression rather than a defined statutory term. It appears frequently in case law and procedural argument, particularly in applications for case management stays, striking out, abuse of process, forum non conveniens and anti‑suit injunctions.

Courts in England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland share a common objective of avoiding multiplicity of actions. Judges may respond by: staying one set of proceedings; ordering consolidation or transfer; striking out as an abuse of process; or giving directions to coordinate related cases.

In cross‑border and commercial litigation, addressing multiplicity of actions is crucial to risk management, controlling litigation costs and reducing the danger of conflicting decisions, especially where parallel proceedings are on foot in another UK jurisdiction, Ireland, or overseas courts.
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