The London office of McGuireWoods is licking its wounds this week after it was roundly abused for filing particulars of claim that were almost four times the permitted length. And that resembled a bad novel.

The firm's claim, on behalf of property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz, should have been kept to 25 pages. It ran to 94. Mr Justice Leggatt was less than delighted. His judgement of 20th February pointed out:

"The particulars of claim which have been served in the present case flout all these principles. They are 94 pages in length. They include background facts, evidence and polemic in a way which makes it hard to identify the material facts and complicates, instead of simplifying, the issues. The phrasing is often not just contentious but tendentious. For example, the defined term used to refer to three of the defendants is “the Conspirators”. Nor can headings such as “the plot” and “the plot evolves” be supposed to be “in a form that will enable them to be adopted without issue by the other party"."

Leggatt J noted that four barristers signed the particulars, so either they were ignorant of basic court rules or took the deliberate decision to flout them. He asked them. The two junior counsel were unaware of the provisions of the Court Guide. The two senior counsel said that they were aware when they started drafting the pleadings, but the exercise had taken three months and by the end of it they were "no longer conscious" of the provision.

    Some no longer conscious barristers yesterday

Leggat J concluded that the "flagrant disregard" for the rules should be punished with an adverse costs order. Tchenguiz now has to pay for pleadings that took a big law firm and four barristers three months to draft. Ouch. And he can't even plead ignorance. His brother Robert also ignored the 25-page limit last year and his lawyers, Stephenson Harwood, got a similar dressing down from Jackson LJ for a 96-page pleading.

A spokesman for McGuireWoods said "the pleading at issue was signed by one Queen’s Counsel and three barristers. While the Court disallowed the 95-page pleading and certain costs, it granted an additional 20 pages beyond the standard 25-page limit as well as an additional 21 days to refile. Any speculation about the amount of costs disallowed is baseless."

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Comments

Anonymous 02 March 15 13:04

Good to see MW only resorted to one old trick (blaming counsel) and didn't add in the other preferred escape clause "Acting according to client instructions"