Disclosure: an overview

by Practical Law Dispute Resolution in association with Allen & Overy LLP

The purpose of disclosure is to make available evidence which either supports or undermines the respective parties' cases. This overview summarises the disclosure process, the parameters of the disclosure duty and the main issues to consider regarding disclosure and inspection for cases subject to the disclosure regime in Civil Procedure Rule 31, Practice Direction (PD) 31A and PD 31B. Disclosure in the B&PCs: a mandatory (save for limited exceptions) Disclosure Pilot Scheme (PD 51U) operated in the Business and Property Courts from1 January 2019 until 1 October 2022. On 15 July 2022, it was announced that the DPS had been approved and would operate on a permanent basis from 1 October 2022. PD 57AD ("Disclosure in the Business and Property Courts") took effect on 1 October 2022, replacing PD 51U, and implementing, on a permanent basis, the procedures that previously applied under PD 51U. For details of our content considering the approach to disclosure under PD 57AD (and its predecessor PD 51U), see Disclosure in the B&PCs toolkit. Changes to CPR 28.2 and CPR 31.5 under the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2024 (SI 2024/106): Changes to CPR 28.2 implemented on 6 April 2024 appear to have been incorrectly applied on the justice.gov.uk website. Further, the apparently intended changes to CPR 28.2 and CPR 31.5 have led to a lack of clarity regarding the approach to disclosure. We have sought clarification from the Civil Procedure Rule Committee and will update our materials once the position has been clarified. For more details, see Legal update, Disclosure: potential confusion regarding changes to CPR 28.2 and CPR 31.5.