Guidance for Electronic Court Bundles

Hot off the press is the following guidance as to electronic court bundles from HHJ Hodge QC, reported on Lawtel this morning. Sitting in the Business and Property Courts in Manchester in the case of Taibly (2020) [2020] EWHC 1135 (Ch), HHJ Hodge QC sets out his summary on the subject at paragraph 5 of the judgment:

There are two relevant lessons to be learned from the present case. First, engage the advocate who will be conducting the actual hearing at an early stage to advise as to what documents are “essential” so that they can be included, and all other documents excluded, from the hearing bundle. Secondly, provide a searchable index to the bundle if this is possible; but, if it is not, ensure that all the pages of the bundle (including any index and divider pages) are individually, and sequentially, paginated so that it can be readily searchable by scrolling down the file.

Whilst it may be  that the Manchester Business & Property Courts have fewer problems with missing files or missing documents on file, it would still be sensible to provide a separate ‘non’ essential bundle of the key core case documents (i.e pleadings, previous court orders) just in case the full file has not made its way to the judge (though probably not if your application is before HHJ Hodge QC​…..).  If it is a separate PDF document, the Court can ignore if it wishes and will be unlikely to complain about bundle length.​

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