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28 March 2017 / Richard Harrison
Issue: 7741 / Categories: Opinion , Procedure & practice , CPR
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The Brexit of CPR

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Richard Harrison looks at the treatment of costs management in the Merrix case & finds some interesting parallels

Brexit, as well as meaning “Brexit”, means that the political establishment can talk about and do little else. We seem to have a single issue administration. It has devoted itself to implementing the “will of the people” even when that desire was expressed by a very small majority, apparently bamboozled by misrepresentations and manipulated by demagogues and self-interested media, into voting for a simple “yes” or “no”.

That binary solution is one which no sensible person would want to apply to a complex cultural and commercial tapestry built up over 40 years. It simply cannot be unravelled without immense effort and possibly immense damage.

By presenting the British people with such a misconceived, simple choice about which to express a “will”, the last Conservative government gave a poisonous legacy to the present one and it is one which Mrs May and her colleagues are struggling to implement rationally. Some believe it will cause immense damage

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Clarke Willmott—Megan Bradbury

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Commercial and technology practice boosted by team hire

NEWS
Pathfinder courts—renamed ‘Child focused courts’—are to be rolled out nationally, following a successful pilot where backlogs halved and cases were resolved up to seven and a half months faster
The Court of Appeal has unanimously dismissed a £385,000 costs order against a father, in a case that centred on what is required to meet the threshold of ‘reprehensible or unreasonable’ behaviour
Centuries-old burial laws would be overhauled, under Law Commission proposals to address the burgeoning problem of shortage of cemetery space
The government has committed an extra £32m to women’s charities and services tackling addiction, trauma, abuse and homelessness
The Financial Ombudsman is poised for major reform to return it to a simple, impartial dispute resolution service
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