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When you encounter commercial disputes in your business activity, you should resolve them as soon as possible. You can do this through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods such as mediation. It is usually advisable to avoid court action, so exhausting a wide range of options is essential. Court action, such as in the High Court, can be timely and costly for your business. However, sometimes commercial litigation is necessary for resolving a commercial dispute. Yet you may not agree with the commercial court judge’s decision, and it can be possible to appeal decisions by commercial judges. This article will explain what to do if your business needs to bring commercial cases to the Court of Appeal.
What is the Court of Appeal?
If you engage in commercial litigation for your commercial dispute, you will do so in a commercial court. This is a civil court and a lower court in the court rankings.
The Court of Appeal, however, is an upper court in commercial litigation. The losing party in your commercial dispute may be able to appeal to the Court of Appeal to look at the lower commercial court’s decision.
How Do I Bring a Case to the Court of Appeal?
The first thing to understand about bringing a commercial case to the Court of Appeal is that you can only sometimes do this. In some cases, your commercial litigation may have an automatic right of appeal, but this is different. The typical scenario is that you must get the ‘leave of the court’ to appeal your commercial dispute.
You may be able to take your case to the Court of Appeal where the civil court made a mistake on:
- points of law;
- points of fact: or
- a significant procedural mistake or another irregularity, making the decision grossly unjust.
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What Are the Time Limits for Bringing a Case to the Court of Appeal?
If you wish to appeal your case to the Court of Appeal, you must know the time limits. You can start your appeal up to 21 days after the court’s decision on your case. Therefore, you must act quickly if you consider appealing your case to the Court of Appeal.
This guide outlines how to resolve commercial disputes.
You should note that when you do start the appeal process, this does not affect any current judgment as a result of the case on your business. You can only try to change this by asking for a stay of judgment while you wait for the appeal process to complete.
What Do I Need to Do to Bring My Case to the Court of Appeal?
When you bring a case to the Court of Appeal, you first need to act within the 21-day time limit by filing an appeal notice with the court. Next, you must give this to each respondent in the case as soon as possible and within seven days after you file it with the Court of Appeal.
You have to justify to the Court of Appeal judge what makes the lower court’s decision wrong. These are the merits of your appeal case. When you write your appeal notice, you should serve it with the skeleton argument within 14 days of this notice. You should also include any other relevant documents for your case with your skeleton argument.
Key Takeaways
If you decide on court litigation for your commercial dispute, you may later wish to appeal this to the Court of Appeal. Notably, you do not always have an automatic right to appeal and instead may need to ask the court for permission. When you can appeal the decision in your commercial case, it will not necessarily be to the Court of Appeal in the first instance. It may be to different types of judges in the lower court.
You have up to 21 days to start the process when you appeal to the Court of Appeal. This involves filing an appeals notice with a skeleton argument containing the merits of your case. Letting a commercial lawyer do this for you is an excellent idea.
If you need help understanding how your business can bring a commercial case to the Court of Appeal, LegalVision’s experienced disputes and litigation solicitors can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.
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