A form of disclosure that can apply for cases subject to the disclosure regime under Civil Procedure Rule (CPR) 31, Practice Direction (PD) 31A and PD 31B, that requires a party to disclose documents:

(Civil Procedure Rule (CPR) 31.6.)

A party discloses a document by stating that the document exists or has existed (CPR 31.2).

Until 6 April 2024, what was CPR 31.5(1) expressly provided that standard disclosure would be the usual order for multi-track claims including a claim for personal injuries (unless the court directed otherwise). CPR 31.5(1) was deleted with effect from 6 April 2024 but it seems implicit that standard disclosure will continue to be the usual order for such claims. The deletion of CPR 31.5(1) does not seem entirely helpful. We have raised this with the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC). We understand that standard disclosure will also be the default for fast track and intermediate track claims including a claim for personal injury, but the provisions in CPR 28.2 that specified this were deleted, with effect from 6 April 2024, under the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2024. We have raised this with the CPRC.

Multi-track claims that do not include a claim for personal injuries, and fall under the disclosure regime in CPR 31, Practice Direction (PD) 31A and PD 31B, are subject to the procedure under CPR 31.5(2). Standard disclosure is still one option (under CPR 31.5(7)(e)), but is no longer the default provision for these cases. The court decides which of a menu of disclosure options is appropriate, having in mind the overriding objective and the need to limit disclosure to what is necessary to deal justly with the case.

The concept of standard disclosure does not apply for cases in the Business and Property Courts that are subject to PD 57AD ("Disclosure in the Business and Property Courts").

PD 57AD took effect on 1 October 2022, replacing what was PD 51U, and implementing, on a permanent basis, the procedures that applied, from 1 January 2019 until 1 October 2022, under the Disclosure Pilot Scheme.

For more information about the disclosure process in civil litigation, see Practice notes, Disclosure: an overview and The approach to disclosure in the different tracks.

For details of our materials on the approach to disclosure under PD 57AD, see Disclosure in the B&PCs toolkit.