From 28 July, most specified money claims valued at or under £25,000 issued by legal representatives must use the Online Civil Money Claims (OCMC) for issuing, responding and progressing claims.
The only exceptions are for those claims started in the Damages Claims Portal, where use is already mandated, the Production Centre and Money Claims Online (MCOL).
Those whose claims are subject to the changes will no longer be able to issue or respond on paper.
Mandatory mediation
As part of the changes introduced, those issuing road traffic accident (RTA) claims with specified values of £10,000 or less through the OCMC that do not involve a personal injury element will be part of a one year pilot and automatically referred to mediation.
The purpose of the pilot is to help decide whether low value non-personal injury RTA claims should be subject to mandatory referral to mediation.
Alongside the pilot, a public consultation and a review of the pilot's performance will be conducted in due course.
Our comments
The Practice Direction and rules around mandatory referral to mediation have not yet been published, and will follow. Industry stakeholders have called for their publication without delay to avoid unnecessary confusion.
It remains to be seen if HMCTS is adequately resourced to accommodate the increased number of claims that will be caught by the mandatory mediation pilot extension.
As mentioned above, the changes to OCMC and the mediation pilot are limited to specified damages claims. Claims involving general damages should use the DCP.
It is difficult to see how mandatory mediation will have a positive effect on credit hire claims for fixed sums unless disclosure takes place prior to the meeting. Typically, defendants do not get disclosure until a few weeks before trial, and settlement often cannot be reached without disclosure. Additionally, mediation will often be fruitless unless credit hire organisations are involved because claimant solicitors often need instructions from them.
At present, many matters relating to the mediation pilot remain unclear to practitioners. For example, we do not know which organisation will administer the pilot scheme, nor have we seen the rules governing it. Also, it is unclear what, if any, sanctions will be applied for non-compliance or failing to properly engage with the process. Sanctions are available to the courts under CPR 27.14(2)(g), and we expect these will be used as HMCTS is keen to encourage uptake of the pilot, but we do not know that for certain.
Hopefully, the forthcoming publications will shed light on these and other issues of importance to court users.
For more information or advice, please contact one of our experts in our Strategic Advisory Team.
