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Practical Law Dispute Resolution Blog - À la carte or set menu? Disclosure options (Hannah McCarthy)

The courts have long expressed concerns about costs of disclosure as amongst the most significant costs of substantial commercial litigation. It was against this background that the old test of discovery (any document that was broadly relevant) was redefined by the Woolf reforms of 1999 to standard disclosure, limited, if it could be said, to documents that support or adversely affect any party's case. Yet, even with the guiding principles of CPR 31.5 and the court's powers to limit disclosure, the costs of standard disclosure frequently match disclosure of documents that would fall within the old test of discovery.

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