ID Medical Group Ltd v Unified Medical Ltd & Ors

Expedition is a discretionary case-management decision. The court must balance the need for prompt determination against the overriding objective and the requirements of other litigants. A party’s agreement, and the possibility that an expedited hearing is feasible, do not establish entitlement to expedition.

The court should assess the case as a whole. Expedition is less appropriate where only part of the dispute is urgent, monetary and subsidiary claims would enlarge the trial materially, or the proposed timetable would impose disproportionate burdens on other parties and the court. Costs may be divided between amounts payable immediately and amounts reserved to the trial judge where interim relief, merits and costs are closely connected.

The claimant, a healthcare recruitment agency, sought interim relief against a former senior employee, a newly established competing company and other former employees. The parties agreed undertakings regulating some activities pending trial and proposed an expedited ten-day trial, together with directions for pleadings, disclosure and evidence.

The court had to determine the outstanding case-management directions, in particular whether the action should be expedited, whether general disclosure should be ordered, and how the costs of the interim applications should be dealt with. The court also considered the position of defendants who had not attended the application.

1. Expedition. The court declined to order an expedited ten-day trial in July. Expedition is a matter for judicial discretion, to be exercised consistently with the overriding objective and having regard to the requirements of other litigants. The fact that a case can be heard quickly, or that the parties wish it to be heard quickly, is only the starting point ([2011] EWHC 2018 (Ch); [2009] EWHC 3204 (Ch)).
2. The interim undertakings and the possible expiry of contractual restrictions created some urgency. That factor was outweighed by the substantial monetary claims, numerous factual disputes, allegations concerning employees’ departures and solicitation, fiduciary-duty and economic-tort issues, the expanded ten-day estimate, and the limited practical importance of the restrictions’ duration. The claim had to be considered as a whole. Splitting off the urgent issues was neither sought nor shown to be practical.
3. The court considered that any springboard advantage was unlikely to extend materially beyond the expiry of the covenants and might already have been eliminated by the undertakings. Springboard relief is often evidentially difficult to establish, particularly where injunctive relief is sought, but that did not justify expedition of the entire action ([2018] EWHC 404 (QB); [2012] EWHC 90 (QB)).
4. The directions were adjusted. No general standard disclosure order was made. Any specific disclosure was to be considered after service of the defences and, if appropriate, approved by the court. A case-management conference was to address disclosure, evidence and further trial directions, having regard to defendants not before the court.
5. Costs. Half of the costs of each interim application was ordered to be paid by the respondents in any event, with the balance reserved to the trial judge. The court applied a broad-brush assessment because the interim relief, substantive merits and proposed expedition were closely interrelated. An interim payment of £30,000 was ordered in two instalments of £15,000, each payable within 28 days.

First-instance case-management and costs judgment. The judgment records an earlier interim hearing before Zacaroli J on 20 March 2018, at which undertakings and information directions were ordered, but gives no citation for that order.