This Practice Direction replaces HC50 of May, 2009, and will come into operation on 12th April, 2019.

1. The Solicitor’s Certificate issued pursuant to O.63(a), r. 4 (2) of the Rules of the Superior Courts grounding an application to enter a case in the Commercial List must be signed by an individual solicitor who is and will be responsible for the conduct of the case. It is not sufficient that the Certificate be signed in the name of a firm. The certificate seeking entry into the list should state the section/s of O.63 A r. (1) under which the application is being made.

2. Such certificate, in addition to containing the other material prescribed by the Rules, must also contain undertakings to the court from the solicitor –

(a) that in the event of the case being admitted to the Commercial List, that solicitor will use his/her best endeavours to ensure that the court’s directions will be complied with in full; and

(b) that within 14 days of the conclusion of the case in the High Court, whether by agreement, discontinuance, strike out, dismiss or other court order, and whether before or after entry to the Commercial List, such solicitor will use his/her best endeavours to submit by electronic means to the Courts Service at commercialdata@courts.ie a Case Report in the format published in the High Court section on the Courts Service website www.courts.ie on the date of publication of this Practice Direction.

3. An application to enter a case in the Commercial List grounded on a Certificate which does not comply with the provisions of paras. 1 & 2 of this direction will be refused.

4. When a case is entered into the Commercial List the respondent will be required to nominate an individual solicitor who will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the directions of the court.

5. Papers in respect of motions to be heard by the judge in charge of the commercial list on a Monday must be lodged by the moving party in the List Room of the Central Office of the High Court by 4.30 pm on the preceding Wednesday. Those papers must include all relevant Orders made by the court.

6. Papers for trials must be delivered to the List Room not later than 4.30 p.m. on the Wednesday preceding the week in which the trial is due to begin.

7. On every Friday during term there will be a call over at 10 am before the judge in charge of the Commercial List of the cases listed for trial during the following week. The purpose of this call-over is to ensure that all pre-trial directions given by the court have been complied with in full and that the case is ready to proceed.

8. In the event of a case settling prior to its trial date it is the duty of the solicitor for the moving party to inform the court of that fact immediately.

9. All papers lodged in the List Room must be properly bound, indexed and paginated. 

Peter Kelly
President of the High Court                    
12th April 2019

Associated Document:
Excel Spreadsheet Case Report