ACCT 3306 · Civil Litigation Support · The Expert Witness under CPR Part 35

Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum

1. Module 6 ○ Open

   Civil Litigation Support · The Expert Witness under CPR Part 35

   Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum

   The question

   The expert witness role under the Civil Procedure Rules Part 35 — the procedural framework within which most forensic accountants operate in UK civil litigation. The module covers the expert's overriding duty to the court (rule 35.3), the report content requirements (Practice Direction 35), the truth statement and expert's declaration, the engagement workflow from instruction through to court attendance, the experts' meeting and joint statement procedure under rule 35.12, and the discipline of resisting instructing-solicitor pressure to strengthen conclusions beyond what the data supports.

   Outcome

   The student can structure a CPR Part 35-compliant expert report including the truth statement and expert's declaration; can articulate the expert's overriding duty to the court and how to manage solicitor pressure; and can identify the components of the experts' meeting and joint statement procedure. (Civil litigation support)

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   Practice scenarios

   Drafting an Expert Report on the Distribution-Agreement Case

   You draft an expert report under CPR Part 35 on lost profits for the distribution-agreement case from Module 4, structured for service in the High Court Commercial Court. The work tests whether you can produce a report that survives the experts' meeting, the joint statement, and cross-examination, while resisting an instructing solicitor's predictable pressure for a higher headline number.

   Your goals

   • Outline the report structure: (1) instructions and questions; (2) expert qualifications; (3) information sources; (4) facts and assumptions; (5) lost-profits methodology; (6) lost-profits quantification with sensitivity analysis (per Module 4); (7) period-of-loss analysis with the contract-term sensitivity; (8) mitigation analysis; (9) summary of conclusions; (10) range-of-opinion section addressing any reasonable alternative; (11) truth statement; (12) expert's declaration.
   • Frame the *facts and assumptions* section: distinguish facts within knowledge (the historical financials; the documentary evidence; the industry data) from assumptions (the growth rate absent breach; the discount rate; the substitute-product margin trajectory).
   • Frame the *range-of-opinion* section: identify two reasonable alternative views (the slower 8% growth scenario; the contract-term 1-year sensitivity); explain why the central estimate is preferred but acknowledge the range.
   • Anticipate the experts' meeting: identify the likely agreed points (the historical financials; the methodology of lost-profit calculation); the likely disputed points (the growth assumption; the period of loss; the substitute-product margin); prepare positions for each.
   • Address the practical pressure: the instructing solicitor has asked for *the highest defensible loss number*; respond by holding to the central estimate as the *best estimate* with sensitivity range showing both higher and lower; the solicitor may use the higher end in pleadings but the expert maintains the central estimate.
   • Frame as an 8,000-word draft expert report (illustrative — outline the structure rather than full text; key sections in detail).

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