By Jemma Slingo2021-05-11T11:01:00+01:00
The commercial court will return to ‘gold standard’ in-person trials as lockdown restrictions are lifted – apart from on Fridays, which will stay remote ‘for the foreseeable future’.
According to minutes from a user group meeting, the ‘mood has changed’ among commercial court users, who are less enthusiastic about virtual hearings than in September 2020. From the middle of May 2021, the court expects that most trials should take place fully or partly in-person.
‘The in court trial remains the gold standard and the court is looking to return to that,’ the minutes state. ‘The message is that the court will require rather more persuasion that trials should take place remotely, but that does not mean that all hearings will be in court.’