At the final hearing (trial) in a civil court or other civil tribunal case the judge will refer to documents arranged in an eBundle which is produced by one of the parties - usually the party which started the proceedings. In an eBundle every section and every document within it is bookmarked and every page has a page number. The judge and each party at the hearing have identical copies of the bundle.
One party has overall responsibility for producing the bundle but the other side must co-operate by, for example, identifying, in good time, the documents it requires to be included. The tribunal will give directions to facilitate the efficient production of the eBundle such as the example directions below. Or the directions may be contained within the rules or practice directions for the particular tribunal concerned. Or there might be relevant rules which are supplemented by a few more specifc directions given by the tribunal for in the individual case. Here is an example of directions:
1. eBundle
(1) Generally the eBundle should contain clear legible colour copies of:
(a) The Statements of Case served by each of the parties;
(b) Witness Statements served by each of the parties;
(c) Documents attached to or referred to in the statements of case or witness statements;
(d) any other relevant documents served by a party.
(2) The eBundle must be produced as a single PDF:-
(a) the PDF must be searchable;
(b) each page must be numbered clearly in the bottom right hand corner:
(i) pagination must be computer generated, not hand-written;
(ii) each page must be numbered sequentially and not by sections
(c) each section of the bundle and each individual document should be separately bookmarked and there should be an index (table of contents) at the front listing each document and its page number.
(d) the zoom property of each bookmark and each hyperlink should be set to "inherit".
(3) Responsibility for the preparation of the eBundle shall rest with the Applicant.
(4) At least 8 weeks before the hearing date the Respondent shall notify the Applicant what documents they require in the eBundle.
(5) The Applicant shall then add the documents which that party wishes to be included, avoiding any unnecessary duplication.
(6) Documents which have not previously been disclosed to the other party/ies shall not be included.
(7) Preparation of the eBundle must be completed no less than 10 days before the deadline for exchange of skeleton arguments. Upon completion the Applicant shall provide the eBundle to the other party. At least 2 weeks prior to the hearing date the eBundle PDF and one hardcopy must also be delivered by the Applicant to the Tribunal.
(8) The Applicant shall bring an extra hardcopy to the hearing for the use of witnesses.
Disclaimer
This information page is designed to be used only by clients of John Antell who have entered into an agreement for the provision of legal services. The information in it is necessarily of a general nature and will not be applicable to every case: it is intended to be used only in conjunction with more specific advice to the individual client about the individual case. This information page should not be used by, or relied on, by anyone else.
There is some variation between the procedural requirements of different civil courts and other civil tribunals for different types of case. The above explanation of procedural rules relating to bundles is only an overview and the example given is only an example. In order to be reasonably concise I have had to leave some details out - details which are likely to affect what the procedural law would say about your own situation. So please do not rely on the above but contact me for advice.
This page was lasted updated in March 2024. Disclaimer