Peter Marples & Ors v Secretary of State for Education [2025] EWHC 2794 (Ch)

 

Summary

The Claimants brought an action against the Defendant, the Secretary of State for Education, for negligence and misfeasance in public office, relating to the actions of the Skills Funding Agency (‘SFA’), for which the Defendant is responsible. The Claimants alleged that the acts of SFA prevented them from selling their business for around £27 million, plus a lost chance of converting around £10 million in rollover loan notes.

The Defendant issued an application to revoke the Claimants’ permission to rely upon their forensic accounting expert evidence, because it had become clear that one of the Claimants, who was a trained accountant, had had significant secret involvement in the preparation of the expert’s report and the Joint Statement.

Learning points

• Disclose any potential conflicts of interest to your instructing party and set them out in your report. If the potential conflict is sufficiently serious, consider declining instructions.

• Include the instructing solicitors in any communications you make with the client.

• Do not permit the client or the instructing solicitors to interfere inappropriately in the preparation of your evidence, including reports, responses to questions from the parties, and joint statements.

• In the exceptional circumstances where there is intervention in the Joint Statement, it should be done openly and be transparent to the parties and the Court.

• If you think the opposing party or their instructing solicitors have been inappropriately involved in the preparation of the opposing expert’s report or the Joint Statement, bring the matter to the attention of your instructing party.

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