SKELETON ARGUMENTS TOO LONG: YOU CAN’T RELY ON THEM: DO THEM AGAIN, AND YOU WON’T GET PAID FOR THEM

There is a short procedural note in the judgment of Mrs Justice Cockerill in Al-Aggad v Al-Aggad & Ors [2024] EWHC 673 (Comm) in relation to skeleton arguments.  Both sides had exceeded the maximum length of time for skeleton arguments. Further insufficient notice was given of the length of pre-reading time that was necessary.  Both sides were refused permission to rely on the non-compliant skeletons.  The costs of preparing those skeletons was disallowed.

THE CASE

This was a family dispute – unusually proceeding in the Commercial Court.   The judge commented on the non-compliant skeleton arguments.

THE JUDGMENT ON SKELETON ARGUMENTS

Procedural note

1. 1. There is one procedural/practice point which I should first highlight, however. This case was listed for two days with a day’s pre-reading time for the judge. Under paragraph F7.5 of the Commercial Court Guide each party was entitled to serve a skeleton of no more than 25 pages unless permission was given for a longer skeleton. Any application for permission has by paragraph F6.5 of the Guide, to be made ” sufficiently in advance of the deadline for service to enable the Court to rule on it before that deadline“. Realistically with one day’s reading that length was a maximum if the judge were to be enabled to read any further/underlying documentation as well as the skeletons.

1. 1. In this case the Brothers’ legal team applied for permission to serve a 50 page skeleton a mere 2 hours before that skeleton was due to be served. That was followed by a request from Rana’s counsel to serve a 67 page skeleton. The parties in addition agreed that I should pre-read 10 witness statements and 10 expert reports, plus parts of 3 key authorities which they optimistically suggested would take in total 5.5 hours.

1. 1. This was a classic example of the problem which this court has repeatedly highlighted of unrealistic reading time as well as non-compliance with the provisions of the Guide as regards seeking permission for a longer skeleton sufficiently far in advance to enable the Court to rule on it.

1. This problem is highlighted because those involved in litigating in this Court should be aware that compliance with the Court’s rules is taken seriously, and non-compliance has consequences. In this case I refused permission for the longer skeletons. I required the parties to serve compliant skeletons and made no use of the longer skeletons purportedly served. Neither party will be entitled to recover the costs of those longer skeletons from any other party.