The amendments to the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW) which require parties to take reasonable steps to resolve, or at least narrow the issues in dispute before commencing proceedings, will commence on 1 April 2011. Please refer to our earlier eAlert! for more detail concerning the new pre-litigation requirements.
The transitional provisions can be somewhat confusing. They provide that the new provisions extend to civil proceedings commenced on or after 1 April 2011 in relation to civil disputes arising before that date, but only if the proceedings are commenced after the expiry of the transitional period (the transitional period expires on 1 October 2011).
In practice, it will be virtually impossible to determine whether the proceedings will be commenced after 1 October 2011. Accordingly, parties should start complying with the pre-litigation requirements as soon as possible.
Importantly, proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales have now been excluded from the pre-litigation requirements (pending the enactment by the Commonwealth Parliament of comparable provisions in relation to the commencement of civil proceedings in federal courts).
We mentioned in our Guide to the New Pre-Litigation Requirements that pre-litigation requirements had also been introduced in Victoria. They were to apply to proceedings commenced on or after 1 July 2011. However, there is a bill currently before the Victorian Parliament that proposes to repeal the pre-litigation provisions.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
