Collect with care

In the first of two articles, which continue our recent series on evidence gathering, Cary Kochberg of Lovells tackles some legal and practical concerns of clients and solicitors when collecting material for use in civil cases that involve allegations of fraud.

This series is extracted from a longer paper entitled “Obtaining admissible evidence from parties and non-parties” that Cary Kochberg presented to the Euro Legal Fraud and Asset Tracing Conference on 13 October 2003. Cary Kochberg is a partner in Lovells’ Civil Fraud and Contentious Insolvency Practice. He may be contacted on tel +44 (0) 20 7296 2000, email cary.kochberg@.lovells.com

Fraud is often particularly hard to unravel and in some cases it will assist to employ private investigators (PIs) to obtain information and evidence. Most PIs are reputable and well aware of the limitations imposed by law on the gathering of information and evidence. However, following the enactment of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (CJPO Act 1994) and the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998), solicitors and their clients have had to be even more careful about how evidence is gathered. An overview of the statutory provisions of which a solicitor and his client should be aware when instructing a PI follows.