We have received some important news from our legal team at Edwin Coe. In order to accommodate the difficult task of understanding the RCI system, which is central to your claim, the trial date has been adjourned until this time next year. Of course it is open to RCI to settle the claim but if that is not achieved then a five day trial window has been set to start on Monday 9th May 2016.
On the one hand we are slightly disappointed at the delay; however our lawyers reassure us that this was necessary to ensure the strongest case. On the basis of what they have seen so far, our lawyers remain of the opinion that the claim is good and they remain confident of a positive outcome if the matter comes to trial. We can go no further than that in this open circular.
The delay is as a result of the time it has taken to resolve the scope of disclosure of documents. In short, disclosure is the process whereby parties to the claim provide each other with copies of documents which are relevant to the issues in the claim. RCI have said that they have millions of documents and thus it is taking the two sides some time to try and agree which documents should be disclosed by RCI. As you will appreciate, it does not make sense for our lawyers to incur huge costs reviewing such vast quantities of documents. This is why they need to understand the documents and the form which they take. Disclosure is a key part of the claim as much of it will turn on the internal workings of the exchange system.
When disclosure is completed the lawyers will reassess the case. Unless there is a change in their view of the likelihood of success, the parties will give each other witness statements from the witnesses they intend to call at the trial. This will happen in the Autumn.