Re-reviewing disclosure (Vilca v Xstrata)

Table of contents

• Practical implications
• The applications
• Disclosure—reviewing the documents
• Court details

Article summary

Dispute Resolution analysis: The Queen’s Bench Division declined to order the defendants to procure ‘an appropriate re-review of their disclosure’ by an independent lawyer directing them, instead, to set out how they planned to review their e-disclosure exercise to date so as to ensure documents falling within the relevant parameters had not been excluded. The court also dismissed applications that the relevant period for e-disclosure be extended and that an individual be obliged to file and serve a witness statement explaining why certain emails had been deleted from his account finding, instead, that there would be opportunities for that witness to be cross-examined on this issue, of which he was now ‘on notice’. The court also refused to add a provision to an agreed order which would entitle the claimants to apply for a sanction (albeit making it clear that the defendants may face ‘a very strict order’ if there was a further inexcusable delay) and refused to set the matter down for trial until ‘reasonably...