Day 277 - 10 Jul 96 - Page 03
1 their statements, or whatever, at a fixed time before the
2 beginning of next term. That is to say, 14 days or 21 days
3 or so, so that both sides are able to look through the
4 statements, and one can spend a couple of days at the
5 beginning of next term just tying up any loose ends. I am
6 saying that against the background that I am getting the
7 feeling from both sides that there is a desire to agree as
8 much as possible. But the problem with what is happening
9 at the moment is that the defendants wish to look at
10 everything before they finally agree to anything. They
11 want to see it in the round. They do not want to agree
12 things on a piecemeal basis, and to some extent that is
13 true of our side as well.
14
15 As I say, ultimately it is for your Lordship to
16 decide. I only raise that just to alert your Lordship to
17 that particular problem. I do not know what your
18 Lordship's view on it is.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How long would it take you actually, do you
21 anticipate, to call your evidence if you had to prove
22 substantial parts of the documents, numbers of the
23 documents?
24
25 MR. ATKINSON: It is very difficult to say because it would
26 depend on which documents were not agreed.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But, I mean, are we talking about two or three
29 days or two or three weeks?
30
31 MR. ATKINSON: I would have thought two or three days more
32 likely, two or three days rather than two or three weeks.
33 I mean, I don't know whether your Lordship wishes to hear
34 from the defendants but I--
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I will certainly ask them what they wish
37 to say. But--
38
39 MR. ATKINSON: I certainly have the impression that they are
40 willing to agree to 95 per cent of the documents and that
41 therefore any that are not agreed are likely to be a very
42 small number indeed. The only thing -- sorry, but the only
43 thing, just to be helpful, the only thing that I can
44 anticipate there being a day or so argument on is if we
45 were to say about some of the defendants' documents, for
46 example, the newspaper cuttings or whatever, that would
47 wished to be relied upon, we would have the argument about
48 whether in theory it is admissible under the Civil Evidence
49 Act, quite apart from getting any statements to prove it.
50 We would, of course, get to anything that could not, even
51 in theory, be admissible under the Civil Evidence Act,
52 triple hearsay or whatever.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Yes, thank you. Yes, what do you want
55 to say Mr. Morris?
56
57 MR. MORRIS: I think we largely accept what Mr. Atkinson is
58 saying, although we might have a slightly different slant
59 on it, and the main thing that would be helpful is there is
60 a certain amount of what you might call 'horse trading'
