Data collection undertaking

Practice Direction HC85 - Commercial list (PD HC 85) replaces Practice Direction HC50 of May, 2009. While PD HC85 reiterates the provisions of its predecessor, it adds a new requirement for solicitors, which is designed to assist the Court in data collection. In addition to the usual undertaking to use his/her best endeavours to ensure that the court’s directions will be complied with in full, the solicitor is required to undertake:

“that within 14 days of the conclusion of the case in the High Court, whether by agreement, discontinuance, strike out, dismiss or other court order, and whether before or after entry to the Commercial List, such solicitor will use his/her best endeavours to submit by electronic means to the Courts Service at commercialdata@courts.ie a Case Report in the format published in the High Court section on the Courts Service website www.courts.ie on the date of publication of this Practice Direction.”

The “Case Report” is in the form of an excel sheet. This includes an Explanatory Memorandum. The data sought is:

• Commercial Court Case ID
• Party seeking entry
• Type of matter
• Type of issuing proceedings
• Value of Claim
• Origin of Parties
• Interim Motions
• Date of fixing of trial hearing date
• Trial date
• Anticipated trial duration
• Actual trial duration
• Hearing end date
• Date of judgment
• Outcome
• Costs
• Follow-up
• Enforcement action
• Appeal lodged

Separate information is also sought for interim motions.

The Solicitor’s certificate seeking entry into the commercial list should also state the section(s) of O.63A r.(1) RSC under which the application is being made.