191st Practice Direction update—access to public domain documents pilot—in force 1 January 2026
The 191st Practice Direction update will come into force on 1 January 2026. It introduces the ‘Access to public domain documents pilot’ (in Practice Direction 51ZH) for a two-year period (with an initial six-month review) in the Commercial Court, the London Circuit Commercial Court and the Financial List, to improve public access to documents that enter the public domain through their use in open court proceedings. Prompted by the Supreme Court’s decision in Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring [2019] UKSC 38 and Lady Hale’s call for greater transparency, the pilot seeks to advance the principle of open justice by shifting from an application-based regime to a default position of proactive disclosure via CE-File. It applies to key categories of documents—such as skeleton arguments, written submissions, witness statements and expert reports—while preserving the court’s discretion to restrict access through confidentiality or anonymity orders. The pilot only applies to documents which enter the public domain via a hearing which takes place in public.