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THE LEGAL STRUCTURE
This section is an overview of the legal structures which exist in England and Wales for the resolution of commercial disputes. It aims to provide potential users with a general understanding of the system, and in terms of litigation in particular, make them realize what they might be letting themselves in for. Although a special Commercial Court exists, it is necessary to cover a much broader spectrum of legal structures since the Commercial Court itself only deals with relatively narrowly defined types of commercial disputes.
This chapter does not deal with the position in Scotland or Northern Ireland, which have their own laws and procedures.
THE COURTS
There are three forums which deal with commercial disputes in England and Wales. These are:
* the High Court of Justice; * the County Court; and * arbitration.
A businessman seeking resolution of a commercial disputes most often finds himself in the High Court. The High Court is principally located in the Strand in London but has a branch network throughout the country. It is divided into a number of divisions, those of relevance here being the Queen's Bench Division and the Chancery Division.
Disputes involving sums of up to 25,000 (and sometimes more are dealt with by the County Court unless there are special reasons for not so doing, such as a particularly complex point of law. The County Court system is a nationwide layer of regional civil courts set up to deal with less important cases. Recently, however, the jurisdiction of the county courts was considerably widened and their importance has increased.
The assignment of business to the various divisions and sub-divisions of the High Court can be perplexing to the outsider. e apparently complex organization stems from the incremental development of the system over many centuries, and the unititiated require a brief explanation of which court deals with what case. This is given below.
* The Chancery Division generally deals with disputes concerning land, trusts, probate, bankruptcy and intellectual property (e.g. copyright and trademarks). Sub-divisions of the Chancery Division are the Patents Court and the Companies Court.
* The Patents Court deals with patent disputes, disputes under the Registered Designs Acts and the Defence Contracts Act 1988. It has a sister...