SOCIETY OF LLOYD'S (Plaintiff) v (1) PHILIP JOHN COLFOX (2) SIR WILLIAM JOHN COLFOX (3) OLIVER DERING HARRIS (4) NIGEL ROBERT KINGSLEY HICKS (Defendants) (1997)

QBD Commercial Court (Cresswell J) 16/6/97

INSURANCE - CIVIL PROCEDURE

DIRECTIONS FOR EVIDENCE AND PLEADINGS : APPLICATIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Summonses for Directions on related RSC O.14 applications selected lead

cases for determination of similar points.

Summons for directions. Questions arose as to whether certain members of Lloyd's had purported to accept the Reconstruction and Renewed Settlement ('R & R') offer conditionally, and, if so, whether Lloyd's was bound by any such conditional acceptance (which, it was agreed, amounted to a counter-offer), and writs were issued by Lloyd's for declarations. In a number of cases Lloyd's wished to proceed by RSC O.14 application, and claimed that the same points arose in many of them, and they should therefore be managed by directing the hearing of a number of lead cases together.

HELD: There were indeed a number of similar points to be determined in many of the cases, and directions were given for RSC O.14 summonses for a number of lead cases to be heard together and for evidence and pleadings to be put into a matching state. The remainder of the outstanding cases were stayed until after the hearing of the RSC O.14 applications, which was fixed for July 1997.

Mr A S Grabiner QC and Miss J Wicks instructed by the Legal Department of Lloyds for Lloyds. Mr Platt for Sir John and Mr P J Colfox. Mr A C Harrison III on his own behalf. Mr M Freeman of Epstein Grower and Freeman for the remaining names concerned.

LTL 30/9/98 : (1998) Lloyd's Rep IR 186

Judgment Official

Document No. AC7100123

For a related directions hearing see Timothy David Phillips v Society of Lloyd's (1997).