Alta Trading UK Ltd (formerly known as Arcadia Petroleum Ltd) & Ors v Peter Miles Bosworth & Ors
[2024] EWHC 574 (Comm)
Irwell Riverside Developments Limited v Arcadis Consulting (UK) Limited
15 November 2023
[2023] EWHC 2864 (TCC)
High Court
A construction company sued its engineers for millions. The engineers said the company didn't give them all the important documents. A judge agreed that the company might have missed some documents related to delays and ordered them to look harder, but said the company had been mostly okay.
Key Facts
- •Irwell Riverside Developments Ltd (IRDL) claimed approximately £21 million from Arcadis Consulting (UK) Ltd (Arcadis) due to defects in the design of podium slabs for a construction project.
- •The claim included damages for delay, cost of remedial works, loss of sales, loss of development opportunity, and extended finance charges.
- •Arcadis argued that IRDL's disclosure of documents was inadequate.
- •The case involved an application for disclosure orders under paragraphs 17 and 18 of Practice Direction 57AD.
- •IRDL initially disclosed 2,079 documents after an extensive search and manual review process.
- •Arcadis contended that numerous relevant documents were missing.
- •The dispute focused on the adequacy of IRDL's search and review process, specifically regarding documents related to delay.
Legal Principles
Disclosure orders must be reasonable and proportionate, considering factors like the nature and complexity of the issues, importance of the case, likelihood of probative documents, number of documents involved, ease and expense of search and retrieval, financial position of parties, and need for expeditious and proportionate cost.
Practice Direction 57AD
For failure to comply with an extended disclosure order, the court may order further steps, including additional searches, revised disclosure certificates, or witness statements.
Practice Direction 57AD
The court may vary an extended disclosure order to include specific documents if necessary for the just disposal of the proceedings and if reasonable and proportionate.
Practice Direction 57AD
The new disclosure process in the Business and Property Courts emphasizes cooperation between parties.
Practice Direction 57AD
Outcomes
The court ordered IRDL to conduct further searches for specific categories of documents related to loan agreements, cash flow forecasts, progress reports, site meeting minutes, documents related to Ideal Modular’s insolvency, and construction programmes.
The court found that IRDL may have taken an erroneous approach to relevance during document review, particularly concerning delay-related documents. The court deemed further searches necessary for a just disposal of the proceedings, balancing the importance of the claim with proportionality.
The court declined to make orders for other categories of documents requested by Arcadis.
The court found that Arcadis failed to clearly demonstrate that IRDL had failed to comply with the disclosure order in relation to those categories. Arcadis did not clearly define the specific failures or propose precise search parameters.
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