Paul Lowenstein QC and Andrew Dinsmore focus on the law on personal service within the jurisdiction. The courts have looked at many different scenarios, including digital service, service by alternative means in multi-defendant litigation and a case where the claimant’s agent tried to physically serve the claim form but was prevented by the defendant’s security team (the papers were left by the defendant’s car before the defendant was driven off in it).
Lowenstein and Dismore suggest that the law on service is one of the areas that would benefit from a Law Commission review, and ‘especially so given that the transition period for the UK’s exit from the EU is fast-approaching, at which time the UK will have to consider its treaty obligations in relation to service’.
They suggest some starting points for the Law Commission to study.
