Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
A NEW FINANCIAL COURT FOR LONDON
Gerard McMeel*
The Financial List
On 1 October 2015 a new Financial List of the High Court was launched, to be based at the Rolls Building, which has been the home of the Commercial Court, the Chancery Division and the Technology and Construction Court since 2011. The new List was initially announced by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, in his Mansion House speech on 8 July 2015, as being established for financial claims of £50 million or more, or cases that raise issues concerning the domestic and international financial markets. His Lordship continued:1
“First, it will promote access to the courts and the expertise of trial judges, for market actors in an area that is of significant importance to the development of both the domestic economy, and to open markets internationally.
Secondly, and particularly through the test case procedure, the Financial List will help to avoid costly and time consuming litigation, through providing a mechanism for authoritative guidance before disputes have arisen. It thus helps to provide the necessary environment, identified by Adam Smith, for economic activity to thrive.”
The new Financial List will draw on the expertise, procedures and resources of both the existing Commercial Court and the Chancery Division. The desirability of specialist courts and judges derives from a desire to avoid technical disputes being tried or resolved by practitioners with no or little familiarity with the field. Famously, the Commercial Court itself (originally the Commercial List) was created over a hundred years ago in response to an infamously conducted trial on general average contribution by a non-specialist Queen’s Bench judge.2
The Financial List has been created by inserting a new Part 63A into the Civil Procedure Rules,3 sandwiched between Intellectual Property Claims and Estates, Trusts and Charities. However, its procedure will largely follow that of the Commercial Court. The principal rules of CPR Part 58 relating to Commercial Court claims are expressly
1. www.judiciary.gov.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/high-court/financial-list/history/.
2. VV Veeder QC, “Mr Justice Lawrance: the ‘True Begetter’ of the English Commercial Court” (1994) 110 LQR 292, marking the centenary of the Commercial Court in 1995.
3. Civil Procedure (Amendment No 4) Rules 2015 (SI 2015/1569) (L 20), r.11 and Schedule, inserting a new CPR Part 63A into the Civil Procedure Rules with effect from 1 October 2015. Part 63A is supplemented by Practice Direction 63AA—Financial List. For the background see “Rolls Building [-]. Financial List Initiative [-] Consultation Document” (2015) (the “Consultation Paper”). See also the responses of the Commercial Bar Association (COMBAR) and the City of London Law Society.
2