Stewarts news, updates and analysis | Page 2 of 6

It hardly seems a year ago that I was writing a commentary on the state of the UK disputes market and predicting that the only certain thing about the landscape was its unpredictability. At that time, I assumed that vaccines would be the panacea for Covid and that the whole rotten ordeal would be over by now. Furthermore, I felt that the fallout would quickly become obvious. I was wrong in making those assumptions. That said, by reading a combination of the tea leaves and observing the market, I do think it is possible to detect some discernible trends for the near future.

One of the strangest features of Covid-19 is that it manifests itself in the human body in a random and unpredictable manner. The same can be said of its effect on the world of commercial disputes. My view is that nothing ever quite pans out in a way many commentators assume.

If one thinks back to the financial crisis of 2008, the only racing certainty was an economic downtown. To that extent, the same might be said of 2021. The prediction 13 years ago was that we would see the usual raft of fraud and insolvency work that typically accompanies a recession. It was anticipated that events would mirror those of the early 1990s, which gave rise to a boom in white collar crime cases and resultant professional negligence claims arising from corporate failures. It did not play out in that way. The scale of the frauds made them almost beyond the scope of litigation. The banks did not rush to insolvency proceedings since they themselves were on the brink of collapse and had no appetite for repossessing worthless assets.