Day 277 - 10 Jul 96 - Page 02
1 Wednesday, 10th July 1996
2
3 MR. ATKINSON: My Lord, could I just raise something before we
4 start?
5
6 Your Lordship suggested that I meet up with Mr. Morris
7 and Miss Steel after court, and that approach has actually
8 proved helpful and has borne some fruit, but we have come
9 across a problem. I just want to raise it with your
10 Lordship. The situation is this, that Mr. Morris and Miss
11 Steel anticipate that when they have gone through fully the
12 lists, the various lists that we served, and looked at
13 their own documents and any other of our documents that are
14 not on our lists, they anticipated that they will agree to
15 about 95 per cent of our documents going in. On the other
16 hand, they say that because of the fact that Miss Steel is
17 being cross-examined, that Mr. Morris is going to be giving
18 evidence in chief and cross-examined, they cannot do that
19 before, at the very earliest, the end of next week or, more
20 realistically, the beginning or end of the following week.
21
22 The problem, in a nutshell, really, is this. In order
23 to comply with any deadline of July 31st, unless my clients
24 know that something has been agreed they have to work on
25 the basis it has not been and they have to get on with
26 seeking to prove it, which is obviously a time-consuming,
27 expensive activity.
28
29 Likewise, the defendants also, insofar as if any of
30 their documents are not agreed have to do the same thing,
31 and they tell me that, and have said to your Lordship some
32 times, they have problems with time and resources. So,
33 what it really boils down to, my Lord, is this, that if the
34 July -- it is entirely, obviously, a matter for your
35 Lordship, I am just raising it to try and be helpful -- but
36 if July 31st is the absolute deadline, well, what it, in
37 effect, means, because the defendants cannot guarantee
38 agreement my clients will have to go ahead as of today with
39 getting all the documents proved that our clients wish to
40 have, and I suppose the defendants would have to do the
41 same. Because a broad indication of agreement, whilst I
42 must say it is helpful, in the end is no more than a broad
43 indication, and if the July 3rd deadline were to be
44 complied with it cannot be relied upon because one has to
45 just go ahead and do the exercise.
46
47 The only possible way out is if your Lordship -- and,
48 as I say, it is entirely a matter for your Lordship -- were
49 to give some grace to both sides, first of all to seek to
50 agree all of these, or most of these, documents sooner
51 rather than later, but any that are not agreed that both
52 parties should have some time over the summer vacation to
53 get those matters proved. It will be very unlikely that
54 they would involve any oral evidence; very unlikely, I
55 would have said. I would have thought that both sides
56 would probably be able to deal with it by way of statement,
57 but one would have to see, of course.
58
59 What I was tentatively thinking was maybe that could
60 happen and that both sides could perhaps come back with
