Accredited official statistics

Business and Property Courts Guidance document

Published 4 March 2021

This document provides a guide to the statistical tables for the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, outlining the definitions used in the tables, the data sources and the quality of the data.

1. Introduction.

The Business and Property Courts were launched in July 2017 as a collective of the specialist civil courts, they include the courts of the Chancery Division, as well as the Admiralty Court, Commercial Court and Technology and Construction Court from the Queen’s Bench Division.

In London the courts go by the title of the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, and cases are heard in the Rolls Building. Regional Business and Property Courts are based in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Wales.

The tables in this publication present only the data for the cases heard at the Rolls Building in London. An infographic to accompany these tables is published on an annual basis.

2. Definitions

The Business and Property Courts of England and Wales

The tables presented look at the total number of cases issued by quarter in each of the lists, and sub-lists, of the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales. The title covers the specialist civil courts of the Queen’s Bench Division, and all of the lists of the Chancery Division.

The Queen’s Bench Division Courts are:

• The Admiralty Court
• The Commercial Court (with lists distinguishing the Commercial Court, and the London Circuit Commercial Court)
• The Technology and Construction Court

The Circuit Commercial Courts were previously known as the Mercantile Court; since the tables presented are for the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales (and not the regional courts), these tables cover only the London Circuit Commercial Court.

The lists of the Chancery Division are:

• The Business List (including lists for Business, Financial Services and Regulatory, and Pensions)
• The Competition List
• The Insolvency and Companies List (with lists for each of Insolvency, and Companies)
• The Intellectual Property List (with lists for Intellectual Property, Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, and the Patents Court)
• Property, Trusts and Probate List (with lists for each of Property, Trusts, and Probate)
• The Revenue List
• Chancery Appeals

The Insolvency and Companies List was formerly known as the Bankruptcy and Companies Court.

The Financial Services and Regulatory List was introduced in July 2017, prior to this cases would have been listed within the Business list. In this instance, figures for these sub-lists before Q3 of 2017 cannot be compared to those after that date.

The Chancery Appeals list includes all Chancery appeals heard at the Royal Courts of Justice, Rolls Building. It is not but rather an option that can be selected to lodge an appeal from Chancery-type cases decided in the County Court.

Finally, the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales also covers:

• The Financial List

This is shared across both the Queen’s Bench and Chancery Division, and hears specialist cases involving financial matters.

Cases by Location of Parties’ Registered Addresses

A table is provided showing the break-down of cases based on the nationality of the parties registered addresses, this can be used as an indication of the international nature of the work heard in the lists.

Whilst there is no formal definition of an international case, it is important to note that a registered address may not accurately portray the extent to which a company is based in the UK, but can be used as an indicator.

The case management system may list several parties against a single case, some of which are not included when assessing the international nature of the case. For instance, the registered address of court staff, judges and law firms are not included when assessing the nationality of parties in the case.

For those parties that are included, they are identified as being from one of the following locations:

• UK: These are addresses identified in the data set as England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or as Great Britain.
• EU Other Member State: Includes addresses registered as being in any of the remaining 27 EU member states, after accounting for UK addresses. The complete list of EU member states can be found at: https://europa.eu/european-union/abouteu/countries_en.
• Outside the UK and EU27: Any registered address that can be identified as from a specific country, but is not accounted for in the above options.
• Unknown: Where no address is given, or where the address is simply identified as being International.

Addresses from the UK Crown Dependencies (the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man), and EU Overseas Countries and Territories (including Gibraltar) are categorised as being Outside the UK and EU27.

3. Differences to the Royal Courts of Justice Statistics

The Business and Property Courts of England and Wales comprise the specialist jurisdictions of the High Court, and so also comprise part of the Royal Courts of Justice group.

Figures for the Royal Courts of Justice are already produced, but are presented on the level of division, so cannot instantly be aligned to those presented in these statistics. A number of comparisons have been made between the statistics, and two definitional differences should be noted.

Figures for the Bankruptcy court presented in the RCJ statistics cannot be compared to those of the Insolvency List in this release; this is because the definition in the RCJ statistics includes cases listed in the Central London County Court, which is not a part of the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales.

For the same reason, case numbers for the Companies Court cannot be compared across publications.

All other discrepancies between relevant tables in the two publications can be attributed to being based on data extracts being taken at different times from a live case management system.

4. Data Source and Quality Assurance

All statistics presented in these tables are derived from data in the CE-File case management system in use at the Rolls Building.

This is a live case management system, and so statistics are based on a snapshot of a moment in time. Validation of the data and derived statistics has been undertaken, however there may be a degree of inherent inaccuracy as the data comes from an administrative database.

5. Contact Details

For queries, comments or further information on the Business and Property Court Statistics please contact:

Email: cajs@justice.gov.uk

General enquiries about the statistics work of the MoJ can be emailed to statistics.enquiries@justice.gov.uk

Alternative formats are available on request from ESD@justice.gov.uk