Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BOOK REVIEW - THE PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE OF THE COMMERCIAL COURT
By Anthony D. Colman, Q.C.
Published by Lloyd’s of London Press Ltd., London (1983, xxiii and 154 pp., plus 34 pp. Appendices and v pp. Index).
Hardback £23.50.
In the Preface to this book, Mr Colman hopefully states what he conceives its purpose to be:
“Apart from dealing in detail with these two major areas of the Court’s work—the Mareva injunction and the Arbitration Act 1979—this book sets out to help the overworked practitioner in his day-to-day work in dealing with commercial actions and arbitration work in the Commercial Court by attempting to supply him with what, it is hoped, will be most of the answers to most of the questions on practice and procedure which he may need to answer at short notice, particularly on a Friday afternoon”.
This is a peculiarly difficult task to have undertaken. There are not many who practise in the Commercial Court and most of those who do practise there do so regularly. To most of them most of what is in the book will be known already. So far as the book concerns the practice and procedure of the court, their Friday afternoons are likely to remain undisturbed by a perusal of its pages. However, for those less familiar with the court, the book may well prove invaluable. For example, a solicitor acting for a client who, for the first time, receives a writ marked “Commercial Court” would be well advised to study this book, as would any articled clerk or pupil starting in a firm or in Chambers whose members practise regularly in that court. The legal adviser to a company which is engaged in litigation in the court would probably also benefit greatly from reading the book; much of what he may think of as a strange and expensive mystery, to be practised by his solicitors and counsel, will be explained to him. After he has read it, he may well come to the conclusion that there is a good deal more common sense in what is being done on his behalf than he might otherwise have thought.
After discussing the history of the court and what is a commercial case, the book proceeds in detail from the issue of the writ until the final disposal of the matter at the end of trial. There are, in addition, two chapters which are of a rather different character. One concerns Mareva injunctions and the other arbitration proceedings. These chapters are not discussions of practice so much as detailed examinations of the areas of the law in question. The practitioner on a Friday afternoon should find both these chapters of particular interest because they are concerned with matters which are nowhere considered in such detail and in such an up-to-date manner. Both subjects now represent a major part of the court’s work and the discussion of the Mareva injunction is both extended (40 pages) and of considerable value. This part of the book might well be studied with advantage by many who do not practise in the Commercial Court but elsewhere in the Queen’s Bench Division. There are useful precedents of summonses, affidavits and Orders of the court relating both to Mareva injunctions and to arbitration proceedings.
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