Disclosure: what is a document and which documents must be disclosed?

The disclosure obligation, in civil litigation, is defined by reference to "documents". This practice note explains what constitutes a "document" for the purposes of Civil Procedure Rule (CPR) 31, the concept of "standard disclosure" and the meaning of "in a party's control", for the purposes of CPR 31.

Disclosure in the B&PCs: a mandatory (save for limited exceptions) Disclosure Pilot Scheme (DPS) (under what was PD 51U) operated in the Business and Property Courts until 1 October 2022. PD 57AD ("Disclosure in the Business and Property Courts") took effect on 1 October 2022, replacing PD51U, and implementing, on a permanent basis, the procedures that previously applied, from 1 January 2019 until 1 October 2022, under the DPS. For details of our materials considering the approach to disclosure under PD 57AD (and, previously, under PD 51U), see Disclosure in the B&PCs toolkit.

Changes to CPR 28.2 and CPR 31.5 under the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2024 (SI 2024/106): Changes to CPR 28.2 implemented on 6 April 2024 appear to have been incorrectly applied on the justice.gov.uk website. Further, the apparently intended changes to CPR 28.2 and CPR 31.5 have led to a lack of clarity regarding the approach to disclosure. We have sought clarification from the Civil Procedure Rule Committee and will update our materials once the position has been clarified. For more details, see Legal update, Disclosure: potential confusion regarding changes to CPR 28.2 and CPR 31.5.