Still the standard? How London can keep its disputes crown

Transcript below:

Geoff Nicholas: Welcome everyone to our webinar, ‘Still the standard: How London can keep its disputes crown?’ We've got four great panelists with us today. Lindsay Bickerton, a Partner at Clifford Chance focusing on complex commercial and financial services litigation and high net worth disputes, often with a cross-border dimension, which is particularly relevant to our discussion today. Natalie Winwood, a Senior Director of Group Litigation at a major bank in Dubai. Hannah Howlett, a Senior Vice President at Burford Capital, the world's largest provider of commercial legal finance. Currently based in Dubai, Hannah works with law firms and corporates across EMEA on funded litigation and arbitration matters, helping clients unlock capital and manage legal risk. Finally, Simon Pugh, a Partner at strategic communications agency Portland Communications, where he leads the Disputes Communication practice. He advises legal teams on reputation management and media relations during high stakes legal disputes and other contentious situations. My name's Geoff Nicholas. I'm a managing director at Burford after spending some 30 years as a partner at Freshfields doing international disputes. So, Simon's going to kick us off today with an overview of Portland's 2025 Annual Commercial Court Report where they analyze judgments from the London Commercial Court and identify relevant trends. Simon, over to you.

Simon Pugh: Hello, everyone. Lovely to be here. As Geoff said, I'm going to talk through some of the findings of our 2025 Commercial Courts report. By way of introduction to the report and the data contained within it, this is the 13th year Portland has published the report. As far as we know, it is the longest dataset looking at the nature of litigants in the Commercial Court. The report looks at the volume and nature of judgments, the nationalities of litigants, and some of the global shifts that we see within the disputes landscape. Because we analyze judgments as the point of data capture, there are two caveats that we should say right up at the front. There is, firstly, a natural lag between claims being filed and then coming through to the judgments.

That means that some of the trends have a two to three year, or potentially even longer, lag before we start to see them. That might mean some of the things that people are seeing on the ground in terms of instructions coming in might take a little while to get through to our report. The second thing is that it doesn't account for claims that are settled or fall away for another reason. Again, there might be a slight difference in our data through to other sets of data that is collected on a claims file. It's a snapshot of the data that we run from 1st of April through to the 31st of March. This 2025 report is based on data collected from the 1st of April, 2024 through to the 31st of March, 2025.

But I'll collectively refer to that as the 2025 data. Let’s jump in. On the graph on the right, we see the total number of judgments issued by the Commercial Court. What we see is that over the last four years, there's been a general plateau that we’ve noted around the 250 judgments mark. That indicates that the call is probably broadly operating at capacity. When we look at the data and the trends that's come within it, what we are generally talking about is the changing nature of litigants within the judgments that are handed down. What we're not really talking about anymore is exponential growth in the court. As I say, it looks like it is operating at capacity. [Next slide]

In 2025, there were 1,368 litigants recorded across all judgments which is about a 12% increase from the previous year. However, as I said previously, the judgments issued was broadly static. What we are probably seeing is an increase in multi-party claims. In terms of nationalities of litigants represented, we saw 93 nationalities represented this year. That's the highest ever recorded. As you can see from the column on the far right of the graph, in terms of non-UK litigants, there's been a decrease of about 3%. If we break that down, the number of rest-of-world litigants has increased.

There has also been a relatively sharp drop off of EU27 litigants. I’ll go on to provide a bit of an explanation as to what might be driving that trend. Because the number of nationalities represented is increasing, we're probably seeing a broader base of nationalities and a longer tale. What this tells us is London still does have the ability to draw very complex cases from around the world. However, the changing nature of those litigants is something that all of us working in the legal services sector are having to think about.

That is why this webinar is so timely today. It is also something that the public clearly care about. Alongside the report, Portland’s in-house polling team commissions and analyzes polling data. We find that 78% of the UK public agree that that English courts have an important impact on the UK's international reputation. It's also clearly something government agrees with. Those of you may have noted Sarah Sackman, the relevant minister’s presence at both the IBA and LIDW recently really banging the drum for legal services. 

I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the nationalities of litigants in the court. Just as a caveat, I'll use throughout this, the words opting or choosing to litigate in London. I appreciate that's a very nuanced decision. In many instances, that relates to decisions that were taken much previous of the actual claims. But just for simplicity, I'll use that kind of language. It's also worth saying that in terms of this, the nationalities of litigants can fluctuate year on year. It can also be skewed quite substantially by large multi-party, quite spooling pieces of litigation. So, when we look at this data and we analyze the long-term data set, it's important to try to look for long-term trends rather than individual spikes.

In the previous slide, I mentioned the fall off of EU27 litigants this year from a slightly higher than expected spike the previous year, which was driven by the aircraft insurance claims. When we look at previous dataset, Ireland actually featured as the second nationality. Now that is principally because of that case, it's not the case that Ireland would normally be up there. This year, as you can see from this slide, it fell away entirely. Another example of that, if we go back a couple of years, is the ENRC litigation resulted in Kazakhstan featuring quite highly and consistently in the Top 10 list, which has now sort of subsided. That’s a couple of watch outs or ways in which to kind of look at this data. In terms of consistency, the UK is unsurprisingly always at number one.

The US is always consistently, over the last five years, within the top three. One long-term trend that I wanted to pull out is the rise of the UAE in the courts, which now features at number two but has consistently climbed. In 2024, it was 5th, and in 2023, it was 6th. In 2022, it was 12th. We’ve seen that consistent increase over the years. That’s the type of long-term trend that provides real insight into how the court is being used. Additionally, when we do a bit of a deep dive into the UAE, we also look at pairings, and this is dealt with in much more detail in the report.

That means nationality versus which nationality. If we look at the Top 6 pairings, we see that 4 of those 6 involve the UAE, so that's UAE v. UK, UAE v. Lebanon, and UAE v. Guernsey. And then insightfully, UAE v. UAE. This shows parties from the same jurisdiction are choosing to have their dispute in London. Now, there are a couple of other smaller things to look at. Luxembourg squeezed itself into the Top 10 this year consistently. Switzerland and Cyprus always feature very heavily. Like a lot of datasets, it is also sometimes more interesting to look at what's not there than what is. For example, Singapore has fallen from 5th last year down to 23rd this year.

 Other than a temporary spike in 2022, this is a bit more consistent with where it would naturally sit. One of the things we can potentially infer is the success of its own commercial courts and people choosing to use that rather than the UK. India fell out of the Top 10 for only the second time since 2020. It also peaked at no. 4, although that was driven by one quite big complex case involving Indian banks. China was at no. 22 this year. That’s broadly consistent with where it where it sits every year. It's usually around the kind of late teens-early twenties. Finally, it is important to mention Russia.

That's often a hot topic, and I know we're going to discuss some of that later during the webinar. When we look at Russia, it consistently had a Top 3 or Top 5 spot for the last five years. Last year, it fell quite substantially. We took from this that sanctions were starting to bite. But this year, it has rebounded at no. 4. There are perhaps a couple of inferences that we can draw from that. Firstly, the presence of some larger cases—for example, those related to aircraft—or perhaps both the fact that 2024 was something of a blip, and that sanctions have not, in fact, led to a long-term shift in Russian litigants before the court and there was just delay caused by the imposition of sanctions. When we deep dive into Russian parties, there are a few other things we can draw out. Firstly, they over-index relative to other nationalities on individuals versus corporate entities. Secondly, perhaps most instructively, they over-index on being defendants rather than claimants. So, the idea that the Russian parties are “using the courts” the way they were previously is perhaps not the case. The other thing that's quite interesting when we look at Russian litigants is their legal representation has increased to about 80% this year. If we go back to 2024, it was about 30%. And in 2023, it was much lower. So, law firms are starting to perhaps find more nuanced ways to work with Russian parties. 

I'm going to move on from looking at the core data to a couple of other bits that come with the Commercial Courts Report. The first is that we look at media coverage around those judgments. When we do a deep dive into the coverage that appears around judgments for international and UK media outlets, we see that there's been a dip this year. But broadly speaking, media coverage remains high. In addition to the names on the left that you are all very familiar with, cases also attract a large amount of attention from non-legal trade media. By this, we mean trade media attached to the sector of the litigants, as well as media outside of this jurisdiction, which demonstrates the further international reach of the courts as overseas media are covering and picking up judgements. It's worth considering that perhaps the presumption of open justice in this jurisdiction is slightly different to some of the competitor jurisdictions, which may be a factor when people are considering where to litigate. And it is as you all know, a big factor in determining whether parties choose to litigate or arbitrate. 

To close off this section of the webinar, I thought it wouldn't be a webinar without mentioning AI. Here is our offering. We often talk about the context of competing jurisdictions’ innovation and efficiency and it is an interesting question to pose as to whether London is lagging behind in that and how the court might keep track with some of these emergent jurisdictions. AI is the biggest technological revolution in our lifetime. If we look at the graph on the left hand side, this is where Portland has asked the public to indicate their comfort with specific tasks relating to or connected with legal disputes.

What we see is the public is much more confident at the bottom there with largely administrative type tasks. As you get to the tasks that would require a degree of judicial expertise, the comfort drops away. If we look at the graph on the right-hand side, this is where we ask people their confidence in particular tasks handled by AI. What we see is a trend that is consistent with people's general view of AI, which is worrying about the loss of human oversight, inbuilt bias and lack of understanding of how the system takes decisions. The final graph on the bottom is where we compare a nationally representative poll: the general public against a specific segment of people who work in the legal profession.

What we see there is that when we ask the question, ‘does AI make the system more or less fair?’, the legal profession’s index is much higher on more fair and much lower on less fair. That shows quite a disparity between what the public think about the role of AI in legal disputes versus what the legal profession itself thinks. As an industry that relies to some extent on public confidence in it, that potentially shows a gap in understanding and confidence that the court will have to consider as it moves forward. Thank you very much. 

Geoff Nicholas: Thank you, Simon. Just a couple questions. Firstly, if people want to see this data in more detail, where can they access it?

Simon Pugh: Yes, thank you. The full report is available on Portland's websites and you can download it there.

Geoff Nicholas: Just a couple of quick questions on longer term trends. You noted the decline in EU litigants, and you talked about the spike that may have been caused by the Irish airline cases. Does the longer term data give any sense as to whether EU participation in litigation in the English commercial courts has been affected by Brexit?

Simon Pugh: Actually, it showed that it wasn't really. There's obviously been some variation, but we didn't really see a dramatic change with any of the stages of Brexit.

Geoff Nicholas: In terms of countries from the APAC region, is it a long-term trend to not see them generally feature in this Top 10? Do we see less usage of the English commercial court from parties from APAC?

Simon Pugh: Yeah, I think that is right. As I say, China has sat consistently at a certain level. Singapore is the one that has probably features most highly consistently in the rankings. But yes, we generally don't see them as a region as one of the bigger users on aggregate.

Geoff Nicholas: Great. That’s really helpful. Lindsay, I was going to come to you next because I think what would be really interesting is if you can unbundle some of the data that Simon and the Portland team put together in terms of what you are seeing from a commercial courts and international disputes perspective. Picking up on the point about the EU, Simon said the data doesn't seem to indicate that Brexit's had much impact on EU parties engaging in litigation in the English Commercial Court, or probably English courts more generally. Is that something that you've seen in practice as well?

Lindsay Bickerton: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks very much Geoff for having me today. And thanks, Simon, for the overview of the Portland report. I think that is consistent from what we've seen in practice. We did have lots of discussions with clients in the aftermath of Brexit, particularly about enforcement risk in relation to UK judgments. I think it's fair to say in the discussions we had at that time, particularly with banking clients we were talking to, with banking being a sector where English law contracts are used routinely. Most clients main concern was really to keep the certainty that they felt the English court's body of precedent offered them, in terms of the interpretation and construction of key financial markets contracts. Brexit hadn't changed that desire for comfort and certainty about the approach the English court provided.

Often, a client's big question in entering into new contracts was that they weren't necessarily looking to switch to a different governing law or a different EU jurisdiction. The focus of their decision making was more on whether to go for exclusive or non-exclusive English jurisdiction clauses. This was in circumstances where, at that time, exclusive jurisdiction clauses would allow streamlined recognition of judgments across the EU broadly, pursuant to the Hague Convention on Choice of Courts. Thankfully, that gap has been plugged with the UK's accession to the Hague Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments taking effect in July this year. Clients thus have the benefit of streamlined enforcement whether they've pumped for an exclusive or a non-exclusive English jurisdiction clause. So, what we saw in our discussions was not really any great desire from clients to switch out to other EU courts, which seems to be consistent with what Simon's seeing from the data.

Geoff Nicholas: That raises two very key points as to why the English courts historically have been seen as one of the more favored jurisdictions for complex commercial disputes: the prevalence of English law in international commerce and the certainty around contract interpretation, which the court has a reputation for.

Lindsay Bickerton: Yeah, absolutely.

Geoff Nicholas: What else do you take from the data in terms of what you've been seeing as part of your practice?

Lindsay Bickerton: Another thing that resonated for me from the full report that Portland had published was comments around the English Commercial Court remaining busy and remaining a trusted forum for litigants across the globe through a period of very significant geopolitical change.

Over the past few years as a firm, we've been acting for a variety of international clients in Commercial Court claims that have, in some way or another, arisen out of geopolitical tensions. One of my recent matters, for example, which Simon's already touched on, is the Russian aircraft insurance claims. Those are claims by aircraft lessors seeking to recover losses they suffered as a result of aircraft being retained in Russia following sanctions. We’ve actually acted for a number of the lessors from a range of jurisdictions: Dubai, Ireland, the US. We've been involved in claims across a range of jurisdictions dependent on their provisions in policies, which do vary. But we've acted for clients in the Commercial Court cases in England, as well as clients bringing proceedings in in other jurisdictions that have been playing out in parallel to the English claims. The English court has actually been the first to reach judgment following a full trial. Another thing about those claims is there's also a separate set of policies which are subject to Russian law jurisdiction and claims under those policies are progressing on a second separate track. Interestingly, the whole aircraft leasing market has elected to bring the claims under those policies in the English Commercial Court, even where they've brought related proceedings elsewhere and the English Court took jurisdiction over those claims. There are about 80 of them being case managed together on grounds that the claimants wouldn't be able to expect a fair trial in Russia on them. So, that geopolitical issue has definitely been a driver of claims. That's one example but we've seen many others.

Geoff Nicholas: Simon said in terms of the data around Russia, that we were seeing probably an increase in the number of Russian parties as defendants, which is probably indicative of some of the fallout from the geopolitical that impact Russia and Russian parties.

Lindsay Bickerton: Absolutely. One of the things Simon's statistics highlighted was a slight dip in Russian parties involved in litigation last year. There are probably a variety of reasons for that. One is probably the challenges that Russian litigants faced obtaining representation in the wake of the sanctions. These have started to be alleviated as the stats show, probably because of the increase to the fee cap that Russian parties can be allowed via a general license. Another possible explanation might be another time lag issue. We've certainly been seeing cases arising out of the sanctions against Russia. What we have seen for a couple of years from the imposition of sanctions in 2022 is a period of global banks and businesses navigating and firefighting their way through the sanctions issues that affect their counterparties. It’s only this year that we've started to see the first disputes crystallize in trials. A recent example of that is the EuroChem dispute in which we acted for one of the two EU-headquartered bank defendants in which the judgment was delivered over the last couple of months. But I do think there is that natural lag in terms of disputes crystallizing and then actually seeing their way through the courts into a trial and judgment.

Geoff Nicholas: That’s interesting because everyone was expecting a lot of litigation to flow when sanctions first came in. Yes, there was a lot of advisory work taking place, but it'll be interesting over the next year or two to see how that's now filtered through to the number of claims going into court, and then important decisions coming out of the Commercial Court on those cases.

Lindsay Bickerton: The other thing I picked up on from the stats was the quite high volume of Cypriot litigants and I wonder how much of that is actually linked with a Russia dimension because it's quite common for Cypriot trusts and holding structures to hold Russian companies ultimate ownership.

Geoff Nicholas: Maybe Simon, a quick question on that. What's been the longer-term trend in terms of Cypriot parties to litigation?

Simon Pugh: I think they have consistently been in the Top 10. Yes, definitely a consistent user of the Court.

Geoff Nicholas: Lindsay, touching on the issue I talked about a little earlier. What do you think does continue to drive the popularity of the English courts for commercial disputes? And importantly, given the title of this webinar, do you see potential threats or areas of concern in terms of the continued growth of international parties choosing the English Commercial Court as their preferred venue?

Lindsay Bickerton: Yes, we have touched on key attractions of the English court which is English law itself, our system of precedent and enormous wealth of precedent the English court offers in terms of dealing complex commercial litigation, financial and commercial contracts, and litigation involving cross border issues. That certainty offered is something our clients value enormously. On top of that, although this is not new or surprising, we have got an enormously high caliber judiciary. The Commercial Court, in particular, is made up of specialist judges who arrive at the bench as already seasoned commercial barristers and solicitors.

They bring with them not just intellectual rigor, but also real experience of the practice of litigation which feeds into sensible case management decisions and a commercial approach to dealing with disputes. On top of that, there's a broader ecosystem that surrounds the court system itself. It's obviously just as important to commercial litigants that they can turn to the right legal representation, and London offers top class representation across the commercial bar and leading law firms. Interestingly, as you asked about challenges to the English court as a venue for international disputes, some of the courts that might be seen to be competing for business with the English commercial courts have recognized that sophisticated litigants want to have their advisors in of choice in place for their disputes.

The SICC in Singapore, for example, is open to foreign lawyers to provide advocacy there. Those are some of the key drivers towards the English court. In terms of challenges, we've seen no shortage of courts over the last 10 years or more, making major pushes to try to attract international litigants. That’s been happening across common law jurisdictions and we've also seen various courts across the EU introducing English language capability, promises of speedy timelines and generally a view to attracting disputes. So, there is competition there. I think we're going to come to talk about trends in UAE litigants that we are seeing. But for the moment, we've been seeing a little bit of segmentation of disputes. We've got DIFC and ADGM in Dubai competing to attract business. Without having the kind of statistics that Simon has provided for the English court, what we’ve seen in terms of trends is that those courts may be attracting more international disputes. However, many of these cases remain quite regionally focused, rather than reflecting the full spectrum of internationality that we see in the English court.

Geoff Nicholas: Great. Well, that's a great segue to Natalie because one of the most interesting data points coming out of Portland's research this last year is the pure number of UAE parties and the fact that the UAE is indeed sat above US parties, which I think is fascinating. I assume in part it reflects how international the UAE’s outbound investment has become. From a client perspective as you work in the region acting for a major bank handling litigation, what do you see as the key drivers for UAE parties choosing to litigate disputes in London and particularly London’s Commercial Court?

Natalie Winwood: Thanks. There is a lot of what Lindsay said that resonates in terms of why choose English courts. There's definitely been a huge shift in the market in the UAE as a global hub. Every single day, you read the news and there's something about somebody moving to Dubai and how everything is shifting over this way. With that comes experience and knowledge and a possible shift in mentality over time. I do think the DIFC and ADGM courts have played a significant role in terms of providing a platform for businesses here to maintain the English law standard of documentation or expectation of what comes with it, but then having a forum that it can be litigated in. I agree with Lindsay in the sense that possibly, the cases that you do see in the region are more regionally focused, like UAE to UAE or some other Gulf entity that may have contracted. 

With respects to the English courts, much depends on the familiarity there is with common law. It takes a while here and it's not like people are used to the English system, the procedures and what's expected. It does take a while to get there, but the more that the English courts are being used and people are seeing it is possible to recognize a judgment and enforce there or judges are not biased against the Middle East. That is something, for example, we've seen in other jurisdictions where we've had judges come flat out and say, “I can't opine on this because I've got conflicting views.” So, there is that element of certainties specifically to financial institutions who are entering into more complex financial structures and agreements that are typically governed by English law.

The ability to comfortably litigate in the English courts is something that people are increasingly interested in. But what is becoming more apparent through that is that the high-net-worth individuals who are here are a lot more sophisticated than perhaps anyone gave credit to some time. Now, we are seeing more and more judgments come out of the UK that are then being used to explore other jurisdictions as well. That's been a big driver particularly from the financial institution perspective.

Geoff Nicholas: I assume this becomes an issue for you in the earlier stage in the process when you and your corporate colleagues are thinking about new financial products, for example, and entering into significant larger scale financing arrangements. What are the factors that you consider as you now have a genuine choice? Even if English law is the law of the contract, you have a genuine choice. You can go to the DIFC or ADGM, or you can go to England. You’ve got English expertise in both of those courts, and you have that ability to choose. What is it that really drives the decision in terms of whether you go for an English jurisdiction clause or, for example, the IFC jurisdiction clause?

Natalie Winwood: If we stick to the financial products to start with, particularly products which have not been offered for as long in the UAE, there isn't the history of judges having come across these kind of structures and making decisions in the same way as in the UK. In English courts, those types of claims would've gone through fairly regularly. There's no doubt that there will be a deep understanding of the actual structures of the protections for financial institutions otherwise, so there is still a little bit of apprehension on the DIFC-ADGM side in the certainty of if we are going to get an English qualified judge who is familiar with the structure.

That said, it’s a very effective and useful forum, especially when parties are here. If we know there are assets to enforce against locally, it’s much easier to go straight for enforcement. In terms of where the English courts have been prevalent in agreements, we are looking for neutrality, or the counterparty is looking for neutrality. In some courts, like in the Middle East, there can be concerns about coming face-to-face with an element on bias. Choosing the English courts could be much easier to negotiate, get things through, and decisions are reliable for the most part. I think there's a lot of comfort taken in that.

Geoff Nicholas: You raise an interesting point, which I was going to come to Hannah on, which is the ability ultimately to enforce judgments is key. Hannah, as you are now based in in Dubai, how do you think reciprocity enforcement between England and the UAE, for example, is impacting the growth of UAE parties litigating in the UK and the confidence they have about doing so?

Hannah Howlett: I think reciprocity definitely informs choice of forum, or it should anyway. All of the benefits that we've discussed of the English court are all well and good, but if you can't enforce your judgment here or if you can't enforce your English judgment where you need to, then it's all pointless really. Over the last few years, we've seen an increasing number of times that the English and UAE courts respectively have signaled a willingness to recognize the judgments of the others’ courts. It started with Lenkor and then we saw a string of UAE judgments being recognized in England. Similarly, the UAE Circular has made it very clear that the UAE courts will enforce English judgments in appropriate circumstances. That’s important from a UAE litigant's perspective because it gives them certainty throughout the litigation process. If they're thinking about where to start substantive proceedings pre-action, they know that they can start the proceedings in the English courts and they get an English judgment. If they end up needing to enforce against assets in the UAE, they can do that with that judgment. They benefit at the outset from the advantages we've been discussing you get from the English courts, but with safety in the knowledge that in due course they can actually enforce that judgment. Similarly, when it comes to enforcement, they know that if they've got a UAE judgment and they find assets of the judgment debtors in England, then again, they can realize those assets and those assets are in play for them. So, I think it's really important.

Geoff Nicholas: Picking up slightly more generally, the ability for parties to obtain orders in the English courts, which effectively secures assets pre-judgment, to what extent do you think that is an important factor in parties choosing England as a jurisdiction for the resolution of complex international disputes?

Hannah Howlett: I think the unique toolbox that is available to litigants that are litigating in the English high court is such a valuable one and should factor into any claimant's decision about where they're choosing to litigate or where they have to litigate. And it's not just about the breadth of the toolbox in terms of worldwide freezing orders, Norwich Pharmacal orders, search orders, banker's trusts, etc., but also the mechanisms that are in place to make sure they work incredibly effectively. So, the speed with which you can go to court and get them the stage of the proceedings that they're available at, the familiarity of the judiciary with all of the circumstances that surround them and their willingness to act with the speed that they need to, which you don't necessarily get in some jurisdictions. I remember trying to get a freezing order in France once in August and was told that you just couldn't.

Geoff Nicholas: But are we seeing that sort of toolbox being put in place in some of those jurisdictions, which are quite properly looking to set themselves up as commercial dispute centers in competition to some extent with the UK? Be it Singapore, or Dubai or the UAE more generally.

Hannah Howlett: We absolutely are. I think to Lindsay's point about Singapore and foreign lawyers being able to advocate there, and to Natalie's point about it being easier to enforce a DIFC judgment onshore in the UAE than it is to enforce an English judgment onshore in the UAE because of the mechanisms. Those courts, and the ADGM, are doing a really good job of competing with the English courts. But I think the English courts maintain a competitive advantage and hopefully will do for a while yet for probably three key reasons. Firstly, to Lindsay's point more generally, you've got English law has centuries of precedent. In an interim relief context, you've got very clear precedent now about what you have to do to satisfy the burden of full and frank disclosure, and what you have to do to prove risk of dissipation.

There's much more certainty in the English courts and much more precedent for whether you will be granted the relief that you're seeking. Secondly, the reputation of the English court and how long it's been doing this for is helpful. An English worldwide freezing order, even if you need to go to other jurisdictions, will often ultimately form the anchor for that international enforcement campaign. Finally, the way that the English market is structured more generally, not just the court and the specialist judges, but also the breadth of expertise that exists around that. The fact that insolvency practitioners, asset recovery specialists, funders, and insurers are all there to coordinate — whether it’s around undertakings in damages, ATE premiums, or whatever it might be — makes it much easier, in some ways, for this jurisdiction to grant interim relief. That way, you know you will have a judgment to enforce at the end. Ultimately, what claimants and funders are interested in is knowing that you can lock down the assets and you can have certainty that you're going to have assets to enforce against, not just empiric victory in the form of a paper judgment.

Geoff Nicholas: Interesting. Natalie, I was going to come back to you on one question, which is I asked Lindsay what she thought the threats might be to the English court. What are the issues that might worry parties about the English courts that could, unless they address it, impact the view from international parties of litigating in London. You raise all the positives about the certainty of contract, etcetera. But from a client perspective, what is it that might give you pause for thought about using English courts that could perhaps be something that English courts need to think about and seek to address?

Natalie Winwood: One of the main things that comes up is the time that proceedings can take, but I think that’s more for say, the local courts, as opposed to the DIFC or ADGM alternatives. The lead in can be quite long. That creates a fair bit of uncertainty again. While it's been around for centuries, it's still relatively new for a lot of businesses in the UAE looking to use English courts when issues inevitably come up on questions of UAE law. From a client perspective, there is a lot of internal discomfort around the idea of trying to educate an English judge through the use of experts, even though there are experts there. The concern is mainly about educating the court on the processes in the UAE which are ultimately extremely different to the English court procedures.

Questions can come up which might seem peculiar or unusual to a barrister or to a judge, and there is that discomfort. With the processes that we see in Dubai courts, everybody here understands how it works and takes comfort in understanding that these are the steps that are followed and that's how it works, even though it might be worlds apart from the English court system. So there is a bit of a disconnect there, and I think it takes a lot of support from external counsel—or from touchpoints within the broader support network, such as funders, lawyers, or experts—to build that level of comfort. Ultimately, these are entirely different legal systems, and each operates excellently within its own sphere, so bringing them together can be a little uncomfortable in the process until you get through it and then it's okay. 

Geoff Nicholas: Well, one would hope given the number of cases that now appear to be in English courts that the experience is developing. But from what I hear you say, it's even where a contract might be an English law contract, for example, it's making sure there is a confidence the English court will understand the business practice that underpins the way that contract has been performed. Or if you are looking to enforce a judgment in England, it's making sure that the English court properly understands the way in which the relevant UAE court system works in reaching its own judgment and its own appellate systems and the like.

Natalie Winwood: Exactly.

Geoff Nicholas: Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant.

Hannah Howlett: Geoff, one other thing on that point that we have seen with clients, both in the Middle East and other jurisdictions, is the massive disparity in the cost of litigating in their home jurisdiction versus litigating in the English courts. And that's particularly the case in the UAE onshore courts than the DIFC and ADGM. It's a stark difference, and it's not only your own cost but adverse costs. That’s obviously great if you win, but if you are a foreign claimant litigating in the English court and you have to put up security for costs, even if you ultimately win, that's still a massive cost that you have to factor into your budget at the outset and can be a difficult thing to explain to a client that's not used to that kind of approach.

Natalie Winwood: Yeah, on the adverse cost point, we’re looking at a huge difference. I think the maximum award that would get made here is possibly 500 pounds, maybe. So as the in-house advisor, it is very difficult to try to get people over the line to say, “Hey, look, now I know that we're spending x million pounds on this claim whereas in Dubai it would be, I don't know, a hundred thousand.” It's such a big difference there. So, we've got to have faith in our lawyers, right, Lindsay? 

Lindsay Bickerton: Absolutely. And is that because there's a cap on the adverse costs that can be recovered?

Natalie Winwood: It just doesn't really exist as a principle. It's normally just the court fees and possibly a small amount, and that's it.

Lindsay Bickerton: So there just isn't the same cost shifting regime.

Natalie Winwood: Yeah.

Geoff Nicholas: That brings me very nicely to my last very quick set of questions, which is I wanted to pick up on some of the stuff that Simon talked about in relation to AI, but frankly, we could have a whole webinar and perhaps more on that. There were variances in both the profession and the public's attitude to the use of AI in different ways in the core process. One of the things that slightly surprised me was that the variance wasn't even greater. For example, the variance between judges using AI to help them prepare their judgments versus the use of AI perhaps in relation to the preparation of disclosure of documents or something like that. But the question I wanted to ask really does pick up on that cost point. Lindsay, maybe we put this to you because you're probably looking at this very actively as a firm, I imagine already. Do you think that our court and, in particular, Commercial Court is open to litigants using AI to make the process more efficient? And importantly, given Natalie's last comment, perhaps more cost effective in the UK?

Lindsay Bickerton: From experience over the years, my answer in terms of the English court's receptiveness to the use of AI is overwhelmingly positive. I do think certainly the English Commercial Court will look to embrace the opportunities for efficiency that AI can bring to the conduct of litigation generally. My experience has always been that the Commercial Court and our civil procedural rules are flexible enough to allow the use of new technologies to streamline litigation where that's appropriate. I can remember the first cases I was involved in where we were using Technology Assisted Review and grappling with how we could use predictive coding to cut off manual review without reviewing every single document, which at the time was a hugely novel thing to be doing.

The Commercial Court was pretty quick to come out with early judgments encouraging the proper use of Technology Assisted Review in that way, but subject to proper supervision, oversight, validation from lawyers. I see the same approach being taken with the advent of generative AI and the overwhelming further efficiencies that can generate. From our experience as a firm starting to use GenAI, particularly for document review and disclosure, if properly managed and properly supervised there can potentially be very significant impact on the cost of disclosure going forward. We have begun to already to see an impact on time and costs that would've just been unimaginable before generative AI came into play.

Geoff Nicholas: Thank you, Lindsay. That's an excellent way to finish. I'm conscious that we've come to the end of our time, so all I'd like to do is to thank Lindsay, thank Natalie, thank Hannah, thank Simon, and thank you for all attending today's webinar. Thank you very much.