Herbies client hit with wasted costs order over e-disclosure failures

The High Court has ordered Herbert Smith client West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) to pay a £135,000 wasted costs order after an e-disclosure exercise spiraled out of control.

Mr Justice Ramsey granted the order against WAPCo in an ongoing case that the company is bringing against Willbros Global Holdings, which is being represented by Pinsent Masons.

Pinsents had argued that its client was owed £1.8m by its adversary following a series of alleged disclosure failures.

According to the judgment, 39 Essex Street’s Stuart Catchpole QC, instructed by Pinsents for Willbros, told the court: “The whole process of WAPCo’s disclosure has now been shown to have been wholly inadequate. […] The failure properly to gather together the documents from WAPCo’s e-Rooms, the WAPCo shared drive […] the failure of [LPO provider] Mindcrest properly to review the documents; the failure of [legal document service provider] Hobs to de-duplicate the documents; the failure of WAPCo’s local lawyer in Accra properly to provide disclosable documents; […] the failure to provide a properly searchable database; the failure to make consistent and appropriate redactions and the failure to obtain documents from the relevant custodians.”

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Source: thelawyer.com
By: Katy Dowell