Michael Hodge KC and Claire Schneider represented the defendant, instructed by Marque Lawyers.
This was a review of this proceeding as a Supervised Case for case management and timetabling. The purpose of this review was essentially to determine the next steps to progress the case to trial. Freeburn J opined that this was necessary given that the proceedings were commenced four and a half years ago and have since then consumed large amounts of the parties’ and court’s resources without making any meaningful progress towards trial.
In this review, the parties sought conflicting draft orders. The plaintiff sought orders that the defendant produce a defence and reply to their amended pleadings, and a regime for particulars and disclosure. They submitted that it is essential that the issues be properly defined by the pleadings before further steps are taken. The defendant sought orders requiring the plaintiff to put on its evidence, contending that continuing the case on its present trajectory will only lead to further disputes about the adequacy of the statement of claim.
In light of this, Freeburn J concluded that an appropriate case management direction was to make orders directed to both the finalisation of the pleadings and to the filing and service of the evidence-in-chief. These orders aim to achieve real progress in progressing the matter towards trial.
The judgment can be read by clicking here
