Judgment Delivered After Settlement

Prudential Assurance Company Ltd v McBains Cooper (a Firm) and others (CA TLR 2 June)

Following a hearing in the Technology and Construction Court on 29 June 1999 the draft written judgment was sent to both parties’ legal representatives in accordance with Practice Statement (Supreme Court: Judgments) ([1998] 1 WLR 825), and the date of 5 November 1999 was set for handing down the judgment in open court. The purpose of supplying a draft judgment in advance of it being delivered was to enable the parties’ legal advisers to consider the judgment and decide what consequential orders they should seek. The parties themselves were not ordinarily to be allowed to have the contents of the judgment communicated to them until an hour before the listed time for pronouncement of the judgment. After seeing the draft judgment, the parties had compromised the litigation on the mutual understanding that as a consequence of their compromise the judgment would not be handed down. However, the judge decided that there was strong public interest grounds for formally delivering the judgment in open court. Both parties had requested the judge not to do so and he granted permission to appeal against his decision, which the parties did jointly.