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This alert considers two recent English court judgments providing important guidance impacting expert evidence, first as regards conflicts of interest and, second, as regards the risks of an award being challenged for serious irregularity upon a misapplication by the tribunal of a model agreed between quantum experts for assessing damages.
FIRST CASE: COURT OF APPEAL RULES ON CONFLICTS OF INTEREST FOR EXPERTS
The first case we consider is the important decision of the English Court of Appeal in (1)
Secretariat Consulting Pte Ltd, (2)
Secretariat International UK Ltd, (3)
Secretariat Advisors LLC v A Company [2021] EWCA Civ 6. In this case, the Court of Appeal ruled that Secretariat, an international expert services practice, breached a contractual duty to avoid conflicts of interest when it accepted appointments from different parties in related arbitrations. The issues in the case were novel: this was the first
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Recent Development in Expert Evidence: The English Court Provides Guidance on Experts Conflicts of Interests and Highlights the Potential Pitfalls int he Use of Financial Damages Models Tuesday, January 26, 2021
This alert considers two recent English court judgments providing important guidance impacting expert evidence, first as regards conflicts of interest and, second, as regards the risks of an award being challenged for serious irregularity upon a misapplication by the tribunal of a model agreed between quantum experts for assessing damages.
First Case: Court of Appeal Rules on Conflicts of Interest for Experts
The first case we consider is the important decision of the English Court of Appeal in (1)
To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog:
In the case of (1) Secretariat Consulting Pte Ltd, (2) Secretariat International UK Ltd, (3) Secretariat Advisors LLC v A Company [2021] EWCA Civ 6, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Technology and Construction Court in A Company v (1) X, (2) Y, 3 (Z) [2020] EWHC 809 (TCC) on different grounds. The Court of Appeal found that although an expert may owe fiduciary duties, including a duty to avoid conflicts of interest and a duty of loyalty, there was an express contractual provision on conflicts which was breached.
Facts
In our alert on 17 April 2020, we visited the case of A Company v (1) X, (2) Y, 3 (Z) [2020] EWHC 809 (TCC) wherein we discussed the judgment that Justice O Farrell handed down on 3 April 2020. The case involved a claim by the owner (