As economic volatility, geopolitical uncertainty and regulatory scrutiny continue to reshape the dispute resolution litigation landscape, businesses are facing a broader and more complex range of litigation risks. Fladgate’s Dispute Resolution team share their perspectives on the key trends they are seeing in their practices, and what these mean for businesses and legal practitioners seeking to manage disputes effectively in the year ahead.
Judgment inflation – the growing length of English Court judgments – Joel Seager
Uncertainty, unrest and companies in distress – what lies ahead - Matt Akers
Civil Fraud insights from 2025 for 2026 - Sophia Purkis
Setting a framework for the use of AI in arbitration – Thomas Karalis
Contentious regulatory article – Doug Cherry and Emily Domingo
Judgment Inflation: The Growing Length of English Court Judgments
What will 2026 bring in relation to the trend towards lengthy court judgments? While practitioners enjoy a thorough judgment, the move towards exhaustive, lengthy judgments poses legitimate questions about the accessibility and efficiency of the common law system for court users.
We often recall long judgments that make an impression on us in the formative years of practice. In my case, the House of Lords decision in OBG v Allan[1] in 2007 (a mere 94 pages) was much anticipated and discussed in relation to the existence of separate economic torts. In recent times there seem to be more lengthy judgments and just as much debate, see, for example, online commentary about BTI v Sequana[2] in 2022 (135 pages) and the interpretation of the timing of the creditor duty. For length, also think Wright v Chappell[3] in June 2024 (533 pages) and, most recently, in October 2025 the SKAT[4] decision (326 pages).
Perhaps, however, the judiciary can be quickly forgiven for the proliferation in page count, which possibly derives from the evolution of the English court attracting “mega” Commercial Court cases, including group litigation.
In 2024 and 2025, the Commercial Court cases of SKAT and PIFSS vied to be the longest court cases ever heard in England and Wales. Such cases are inevitably factually complex, involving vast amounts of documentation in huge trial bundles. They involve factual and experts witnesses galore and require lengthy oral openings and closings. Faced with these circumstances, it is unsurprising that diligent judges wish to be thorough and feel the need to produce a tome equivalent to cover off the evidence heard and the necessary legal analysis.
Statistics kindly provided to Fladgate by Solomonic demonstrate that, across all judgments and across all courts[5] between 2020 to 2025, the median claim value has more than doubled, the median claim length has increased from 358 to 517.5 days, while the wait time to judgment has increased from 30.5 days to 42 days, against a backdrop of the number of judgments being handed down falling by 8.7% in that period.
Are there consequences? From a timing perspective, are practitioners concerned about the ability of the judiciary to recall evidence or complex legal argument after a mega trial and a lengthy post-trial period where the drafting takes place alongside new court commitments? What about the delay to justice being delivered resulting from these lengthy drafting periods? This was something that troubled the Court of Appeal in 2020 in the Arkhangelsky[6] case. Will practitioners, particularly repeat foreign litigants like global banks or corporations, who routinely choose the court jurisdiction in transactional documents look elsewhere for swifter justice? What about whether these longer judgments are harder to interpret (or does AI help solve that riddle for court users at least)?
If the length of judgments continues to increase, it will be interesting to see whether the judiciary are willing use AI in the course of judgment writing, one can see that AI tools would assist for the purpose of synthesis. This may become routine as tools like Harvey AI become embedded into word processing software. One can see a world, in the not-too-distant future, where the current Judicial Guidance[7]
is expanded whereby judges are required to disclose the use of AI tools to parties in advance of drafting or in a judgment itself (particularly where the judgment is anticipated to be lengthy). In the meantime, and assuming AI does not make solicitors redundant just yet, we will continue to be useful in 2026 to give legal advice on these lengthy judgments.
[1] OBG Ltd v Allan [2007] UKHL 21
[2] BTI 2014 LLC (Appellant) v Sequana SA and others (Respondents) [2022] UKSC 25
[3] Wright v Chappell [2024] EWHC 1417 (Ch)
[4] SKATTEFORVALTNINGEN (the Danish Customs and Tax Administration) v Solo Capital Partners LLP (in special administration) and many others [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm)
[5] Excluding Insolvency and Companies List and King's Bench Division cases where the "case type" is Personal injury, Clinical negligence or Asbestos
[6] Bank St Petersburg PJSC v Arkhangelsky [2020] EWCA Civ 408 – see paragraph 84
[7]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Guidance for Judicial Office Holders 31 October 2025
Uncertainty, unrest and companies in distress - what lies ahead
Economic turbulence typically signals an increase in work for litigators and 2026 looks to be no exception, with a particular surge expected in insolvency-related claims, fraud and asset recovery.
Corporate insolvencies are already at their highest level in 30 years and almost half of UK businesses report financial distress. With global unrest showing no signs of abating these figures are unlikely to decrease.
So what does this mean?
- heightened scrutiny for directors who will need to ensure that robust processes are in place for decision making and early engagement with advisors.
- An increase in fraud related claims, including AI related fraud which continues to surge, presenting governance and reputational issues for business (and litigation risk) without investment in fraud prevention measures and robust policies.
- The increased use of freezing injunctions and other urgent relief to prevent asset dissipation, in particular to overseas jurisdictions to frustrate enforcement and recovery.
What else are we expecting?
With topics like insolvency, AI and litigation funding (PAACAR) likely to dominate the legal headlines, we are also quietly seeing an increase in disputes arising from deals in the private equity space during Covid.
Private equity deals spiked to an all time high during 2021, with transactions for the most highly sought-after assets being pushed through at a faster pace than before the pandemic with little (or no) due diligence as investors competed for assets.
As the end of the investment cycle approaches, some of the investments during the Covid boom appear to have been overvalued based on overly optimistic growth assumptions and insufficient due diligence.
This is causing a significant backlog of failed exits from these deals which is driving disputes, including in relation to the use of secondaries as alternatives to traditional M&A and IPO exits and disputes around deferred consideration mechanics, such as earn-outs or vendor loan notes.
We expect this to continue into 2026 as sponsors look for creative solutions to mitigate the hangover from the pandemic investment boom.
Civil Fraud insights from 2025 for 2026
Over the last year and looking into 2026 the increase in third party fraud by hackers and automated bots has continued and it looks to be the biggest threat to individuals and organisations alike. To correspond with this and reflecting the difficulty in identifying and prosecuting those behind such scams has seen the attention of the Courts, regulators and financial institutions alike turn to fraud prevention and focus on the detection of and protection from financial crime. The Courts are also mindful of the need to protect the rights of innocent parties acting in good faith who are affected by fraud as some recent cases demonstrates.
In Bilta[1] the Supreme Court held that under s213(2) Insolvency Act 1986 claims could be brought by liquidators against third-party facilitators of a company’s fraudulent trading and such claims are not limited to directors and those who work for the company. The case gives clarity to the broadened scope of liability for those who knowingly assist a company to incur debts at a time when its directors know they cannot pay them.
In another case that may expand upon the redress available for the victims of fraud, in Ivanishvilli[2], the Privy Council held that a person may succeed in a claim based on a false representation even if they cannot evidence that they were actually aware of the deceit at the time.
It has long been asserted that “fraud unravels all” and in Lindsay[3] the Court held that judgments obtained by fraud may even, in certain circumstances, be set aside as against innocent parties.
However, it is not all good news for the victims of fraud as the Court has reviewed and upheld existing principle which protect those not involved in the fraud itself.
In Santander[4] it was held that the bank owed no duty of care to a non-customer and was not required to take reasonable steps to retrieve funds paid into a fraudster’s Santander account. Any arguable “duty of retrieval” in APP (authorised push payment) fraud scenarios arises, if at all, from the contract between a bank and its own customer and cannot be extended to third parties.
The Court also refused to expand established principles relating to unjust enrichment and the defence of change of position in Rasmala[5] where the defendant was able to demonstrate it had acted in good faith. The court was reluctance to impose restitution where doing so would be inequitable given the recipient’s good-faith reliance and subsequent detriment.
The courts continue to look to balancing the rights of those who have been defrauded and those innocent parties who may have inadvertently been affect by it.
[1] Bilta UK Ltd (in liquidation) & Ors v Tradition Financial Services Ltd and Nathanael Eurl Ltd. (in liquidation) & anor v. Tradition Financial Services Ltd UKSC/2023/0033 and UKSC/2023/0034,
[2] Credit Suisse Life (Bermuda) Ltd v Ivanishvili & Others [2025] UKPC 53
[3] Lindsay et al v Outlook Finance Ltd and Butcher [2025] EWHC 3100 (KB)
[4] Santander UK PLC v CCP Graduate School Ltd [2025] EWHC 667 (KB)
[5] Rasmala Trade Finance Fund v Trafigura PTE Ltd [2025] EWHC 1569 (Ch)
Setting a framework for the use of AI in arbitration
While still maintaining buzz word status, AI is now a commonly used tool in all fields of the legal profession. Dispute resolution is no exception. 2025 saw a number of unfortunate instances of inappropriate use, with lawyers being reprimanded for citing case law that turned out to be fictitious or passages that did not exist in the cases cited. Against this backdrop, a push for setting a framework for the use of AI in the dispute resolution arena is to be expected.
In September 2025 the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) published its Guideline on the Use of AI in Arbitration making recommendations on the use of AI in arbitration, as well as on transparency surrounding its use. For example, this could include the arbitral tribunal requiring disclosure of the use of an AI tool, such directions falling within the general power of arbitrators to conduct the proceedings.
Parties and their counsel are not the only ones concerned though. Arbitrators themselves may make use of AI tools to process submitted information. Arbitral institutions may in the future make AI tools available to arbitrators conducting arbitrations under their rules. As the CIArb Guidelines point out, it is key that arbitrators always exercise independent judgement and not risk compromising the integrity of the proceedings or the validity or enforcement of the award.
We are likely to see more such soft law with best practice recommendations in the future. The American Arbitration Association – International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR) and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) have both also recently published guidelines on the topic.
The biggest transformation however is likely to come from AI tools designed to adjudicate disputes. In November 2025, the AAA-ICDR introduced the “AI Arbitrator”, an AI tool adjudicating low value construction cases decided on documents only. For now, the AI generated draft awards are reviewed by human arbitrators. As the AI tools improve, use of “AI Arbitrators” is likely to expand. It remains key that they operate within a clear and trustworthy framework.
Contentious Regulatory enforcement landscape
The contentious regulatory enforcement landscape is set to be faster moving in 2026, with a focus on financial crime, non-financial misconduct, crypto and other digital assets as well as ESG concerns. We will continue to see a greater emphasis on assertive and intrusive supervision from the FCA, as an alternative and potential pre-cursor to formal enforcement investigation proceedings.
Cracking down more quickly and effectively on fraud and financial crime will continue to drive enforcement. The new failure to prevent fraud offence came into effect in September last year and, with the SFO already noting they are very keen to prosecute firms for this offence (see our blog post), this will be one to watch. In a radical move to overhaul the UK anti-money laundering regime, HM Treasury announced in October that the FCA will become a 'super-regulator' supervising all professional services firms for AML/CTF. The government's consultation on this closed in December so the details of this remain to be seen but could lead to significant upheaval in firms' AML oversight and reporting obligations as they move into a more developed and active regulatory world under the FCA.
The FCA will continue to focus on non‑financial misconduct (“NFM”), with its long‑awaited policy paper on this landing on 12 December 2025, including changes to COCON and guidance on how NFM will form part of Fitness and Propriety assessments for employees and senior personnel which are set to come into force on 1 September 2026. Individual and personal responsibility within the sector from all, and in particular, senior managers, will continue to be a driving theme for firms. Documenting decisions, and the process by which they are arrived at, remains a key method of assurance to firms that they meet regulatory expectations.
Crypto and ESG also remain areas of active supervisory development. The FCA’s latest consultation on regulating crypto suggest that its enforcement priorities in this area may be around governance, financial crime and sanctions evasion, and operational resilience for firms within its remit. The FCA announced two years ago that it had opened its first ESG investigation and the outcome of this is still awaited. In December, the FCA also released its consultation on regulating ESG ratings providers and indicated that, if and when providers are brought within its regulation, it would seek to take the same approach to enforcement as it already does with regulated firms.
The FCA has also continued to devote more resources to supervisory intervention (for example, Section 166 skilled person reviews and the use of voluntary and own‑initiative requirements (VREQs and OIREQs)), which are being deployed more frequently by the FCA. These need to be carefully managed carefully given the reputational and economic impacts such interventions can have on regulated firms.
Financial services firms will need to approach 2026 with proactivity, strong oversight, and a plan to uplift systems and controls where needed to address the FCA’s concerns and avoid provoking the FCA to use its assertive powers. Those individuals with personal responsibility for areas of risk in their firms are encouraged to take notice of their liabilities and ensure they are managing them effectively, review relevant matters and implement change where needed to reduce and manage that risk – all necessary steps to avoid the potential for the regulator’s guillotine to fall.
