Sovereign Dimensional Survey Ltd, Re Order Under Section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1972 [2008] ScotCS CSOH

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> Sovereign Dimensional Survey Ltd, Re Order Under Section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1972 [2008] ScotCS CSOH_85 (6 June 2008) URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/2008/CSOH_85.html Cite as: [2008] CSOH 85, 2008 GWD 24-376, [2008] ScotCS CSOH_85, 2008 SLT 934, 2008 SCLR 569

OUTER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION

[2008] CSOH ~~NUMBER~~85

OPINION OF M WISE, Q.C.

(sitting as a Temporary Judge)

in the Petition of

SOVEREIGN DIMENSIONAL SURVEY LIMITED

Petitioners;

for

An order under section 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1972

________________

Act: Cowan, Solicitor Advocate; Simpson & Marwick W.S.

Alt: E. Robertson; Beveridge & Kellas

6 June 2008

Introduction

[1] The Petitioner is a company engaged, inter alia, in the provision of dimensional control and laser scanning services to the oil and gas industry. The Respondent, Martin Robert Cooper was appointed a Director of the Petitioner with effect from 27 ~~September~~ September 2006. The Petition is directed at the recovery of certain confidential material relating to the Petitioner's business that it is alleged the Respondent has removed and retained following his resignation on 15 ~~November~~ November 2007. By interlocutor of 7 ~~December~~ December 2007, an order was made in terms of the prayer of the Petition, appointing a Commissioner (Jonathan J Mitchell QC) to search for and take all other steps necessary to take possession of the documents and property listed in the Second Schedule of the Petition. The interlocutor of 7 ~~December~~ December also made the following further orders against the respondent:

"(d) to inform the Commissioner immediately of the whereabouts of the documents and property listed in the Second Schedule hereto,

(e) to provide the Commissioner with a list of the names and addresses of everyone to whom the respondent, his servants or agents or anyone on his behalf have given any of the documents and property listed in the Second Schedule hereto."

[2] On 10 ~~December~~ December 2007, the Commissioner duly attended at the respondent's home in Aberdeen to conduct a search. His report of that search is lodged in process. The Commissioner records that he asked the Respondent questions about a laptop which was not found on the premises, but for which a despatch note and empty box were found within the Respondent's property.

[3] The Petitioner alleges that the Respondent has failed to obtemper the court's interlocutor of 7 ~~December~~ December 2007, with particular reference to the laptop about which the Respondent was questioned by the Commissioner.

[4] The case came before me for a Procedure Roll discussion on the first and second pleas in law for the Respondent in his Answers to the Petitioner's Minute alleging Contempt of Court. Those pleas in law are in the following terms ;:-

"1. The Petitioner's averments being irrelevant et separatim lacking in specification, the minute should be dismissed.

2. The meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December being for the purpose of negotiating a settlement of the dispute between the parties, anything said is privileged, and the averments thereanent should not be remitted to probation."

The Respondent's submissions
[5] Counsel for the Respondent's primary submission was that the Petitioner's Minute failed to give clear and specific notification of the nature of the alleged contempt. As contempt of court is a serious and quasi criminal matter, he argued, any alleged breach must be clearly and distinctly averred (Byrne v Ross 1992 S.C. 498). If the Petitioner's Minute was allowed to proceed to an evidential hearing without proper restraints, that would contravene standards of fairness. The narrative in paragraph 8 of the Minute failed to set out a clear and specific statement that, if proved, would give rise to a finding of contempt.

[6] The allegations against the Respondent relate exclusively to the laptop about which the Respondent was questioned by the Commissioner. It is averred in paragraph 6 of the Minute that "The laptop, and the information and documents contained therein, are covered by the Petition." The Petition covers all business activities carried out or entered into under or using the names Coopsco, RDS, RDS Limited, Radar Dimensional Survey Limited "... or any name materially similar thereto." (~~para~~ para 3(c) of the Second Schedule to the Petition). ). There is no averment that the laptop relates to any business carried out under those names. It is averred that the laptop relates to ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited. While there is an averment that prior to 27 ~~November~~ November 2007 ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited was known as Radar DS Limited, there is no reference in the Petition at all to the business name ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited and any breach would have to relate to a business entity carried out under or using the names specified in the Petition. In the absence of a clear averment about that, the Minute was irrelevant and should be dismissed.

It was emphasised that the process of recovering material by a section1 Petition is not a wide ranging search, it is a controlled recovery by a court appointed Commissioner. Reference was made to Dominion Technology Limited v Gardner Cryogenics Limited ( (No.2) 1993 S.L.T. 832 where it was held that the courts would not order recovery if that meant that advantage was taken of the unlawful use of a previous order of the court. In this case, the court order relates to particular premises and property at particular premises. Any statements made by the Respondent to the Commissioner were irrelevant because it is not contended that there was any laptop on the premises.

[7] Mr Mr Robertson's secondary submission was that, if I was not prepared to hold that the Minute as a whole was irrelevant, then I should delete the averments in paragraph 4 of the Minute on the basis that as a matter of law, the discussions referred to therein are the subject of privilege. Paragraph 4 avers that shortly after the Commission on 10 ~~December~~ December, the respondent contacted the petitioner direct and that at his request a meeting took place at 5.10 pm on 10 ~~December~~ December in the offices of the respondent's then solicitor. The Respondent and three officers of the Petitioner were present, but no legal representatives attended. The Petitioner's position, in essence, is that statements made by the Respondent at that meeting, if proved, amount to admissions in fact in relation to (i) the material on the laptop the whereabouts of which the Respondent failed to inform the Commissioner of, knowing that it fell within the material covered by the order and (ii) the giving of false information about the laptop to the Commissioner.. Mr Mr Robertson's argument that those proof of those averments should not be allowed can be encapsulated as follows:

(1) The meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December 2007 was a "settlement meeting"

(2) All statements made at a meeting that has as its purpose settlement negotiations are privileged, if there is agreement, express or implied, that the communications should not be admitted

(3) A distinction should be drawn between statements made at such meetings and correspondence said to be privileged because it contains the words "without prejudice." With documents that contain both statements covered by privilege and admissions of fact the court can easily redact the privileged words. That is not possible with accounts of a meeting.

(4) In the absence of any Scottish authority directly in point on the issue of settlement meetings, the English authorities that effectively treat all communications designed to achieve extra judicial settlement as privileged should be followed.

The nature of the meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December 2007

[8] Mr Mr Robertson referred to an Affidavit of John Burgess of the Petitioner, (6/13 of Process) which was prepared when the allegation of contempt was first made. That Affidavit narrates, with reference to the meeting, that the Respondent wanted to reach an agreement "to make it all go away". There are several references to settlement and in particular the Affidavit suggests that one of the Petitioner's officers advised the Respondent at the meeting that in order to achieve settlement he would have to write a full statement.

[9] As there was a subsequent challenge by Mr Mr Cowan to reference to this Affidavit at Procedure Roll, Mr Mr Robertson made further submissions about the position. He argued that the rule that documents not incorporated in the pleadings cannot be referred to at Procedure Roll without agreement related to productions and reports but could not apply to an Affidavit, which was sworn testimony. Affidavits, once lodged in process are accepted as evidence. No witness requires to speak to them - Civil Evidence (Scotland) Act 1988, section 2(1)(b).

[10] He submitted further that in the event that I decided that I should not have regard to it for this purpose, then even without the Affidavit, the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the undisputed facts is that this was a settlement meeting. It took place immediately after the Commission and against a background of litigation. The meeting was arranged at the Respondent's instigation and it took place at solicitors offices, but without representatives present as the discussions were between parties only. The subject matter of the discussion was the issues raised in the litigation.

The scope of privileged communications in English Law

[11] Mr Mr Robertson argued that there was a clear rule that, as a matter of public policy, parties to a dispute should be allowed to negotiate freely without fear of the detail of those negotiations subsequently being founded on by an opponent in the absence of settlement. Under reference to Rush & Tompkins Ltd v Greater London Council and Another [1989] AC 1280, an English appeal to the House of Lords, he stated that the public policy rule there confirmed applied to oral as well as written negotiations where these were genuinely aimed at settlement (per Lord Griffiths at at 1299-1300). The decision in Rush & Tompkins related to the issue of whether written admissions made in an attempt to reach settlement with one party were admissible at the issue of another party with whom settlement had not been achieved. The admissibility of oral communications was more directly addressed by the Court of Appeal in Unilever plc v Proctor & Gamble [2000] 1 WLR 2436. In that case it was held that where a meeting was intended to be an occasion for both sides to a dispute to speak freely then nothing should be pled in relation to what was said at the meeting either as a threat or a claim of right. Robert Walker L.J., having cited Lord Griffiths in Rush & Tompkins, supra, opined that, in addition to public policy, the other foundation for the privilege rule is in "... the express or implied agreement of the parties themselves that communications in the course of their negotiations should not be admissible in evidence if, despite the negotiations, a contested hearing ensues."

While the general rule has some exceptions, listed in Unilever, none of those were here present.

The Scottish authorities on privileged communications

[12] Mr Mr Robertson went on to argue that such Scottish authorities as existed were not directly in point but were at least not inconsistent with the general rule stated in England. All of the Scottish cases recognise the public policy that lay at the root of the Respondent's argument. But all of them address only what he termed the "speciality" of written admissions.

[13] In Bell v Lothiansure Limited 1990 S.L.T. 58, Lord McCluskey took a strict view even in relation to written communications and refused to admit to probation certain averments about a letter containing an extra judicial offer on the basis that they were covered by privilege.

[14] On the other hand, the decisions in Watson-Towers Ltd v McPhail 1986 S.L.T. 617, Daks Simpson Group plc v Kuiper 1994 S.L.T. 689, Gordon v East Kilbride Development Corporation 1995 S.L.T. 62 and Richardson v Quercus Ltd 1999 S.L.T. 596 all supported an exception from the rule protecting privileged communications from being relied upon where clear admissions or statements of fact were made in the context of "without prejudice" correspondence and could be easily identified and separated from any genuinely privileged statements.

[15] Counsel relied on the fact that in Daks v Kuiper the admission had been made at a meeting, which was then followed up by a letter and that the argument about admissibility related only to the letter.

[16] In all of the cases referred to above the court was prepared to look at unequivocal written admissions, but no indication was given as to what the position would be if the alleged admission was made orally at a settlement meeting. They were all Outer House decisions with the exception of Richardson v Quercus, a decision of an Extra Division, where the focus was the effect of the words "without prejudice" in correspondence and the issue of whether the contentious letter should be looked at in isolation or in the context of other correspondence.

[17] Mr Mr Robertson sought to draw a general distinction between statements made at meetings, which are fluid and difficult to examine the context of, and correspondence, where the privileged parts can be easily redacted. He referred to the process of Mediation by way of an example of negotiation meetings being afforded special, confidential status.

[18] In conclusion he argued that if the averments covered by privilege were deleted and having regard to the strict standards that apply to pleadings in the context of contempt of court, there would be nothing of relevance left for the Respondents to prove. The Minute was an attempt to glean material on matters that lie behind the Petition rather than on issues focused by it and it should be dismissed as irrelevant and lacking in specification.

The Petitioner's Response

[19] Mr Mr Cowan invited me to allow a Proof on the Minute and Answers and addressed me on the two principal issues of the nature of the alleged contempt and the issue of privilege.

The nature of the alleged contempt
[20] It was accepted that given the quasi criminal nature of the proceedings the alleged breach requires to be clearly and distinctly averred, but Mr Mr Cowan sought to distinguish the present case from the situation that arose in Byrne v Ross, supra, which was an appeal after an evidential hearing where there were no averments at all on one of the breaches found to have been established. Given the lack of any prior notice in the pleadings of those breaches, the findings in respect of them could not stand.

[21] The Petitioner was not claiming that there was a contempt of court because the laptop was not recovered, rather it was the false responses to the Commissioner that constituted the breach. These did not constitute perjury, but contempt of court.

[22] The Petitioner's position was that the Respondent failed to obtemper paragraphs (d) and (e) of the interlocutor, which relate to providing information about the whereabouts of any documents listed in the Second Schedule of the Petition. Mr Mr Cowan freely accepted that the extent of the Respondent's obligation was restricted by the Second Schedule. He argued that the laptop and its whereabouts fell within the Second Schedule. He accepted that the business ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited is not named within paragraph 3(c) of the Schedule. But he said that on his averments, documents relating to the business of ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited would show or tend to show the business of Radar DS Limited, which was materially similar to the specific names listed in the Petition. He told me that when the Petition was drafted he did not know about the existence of the name "~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited". In conclusion on this point, he said that the laptop may fall within ~~para~~ para 3(c) of the Second Schedule, as the short period between the laptop being purchased and 7 ~~December~~ December would tend to show the business activities of Radar DS Limited.

[23] Mr Mr Cowan's position was that only after Proof would the court be able to determine whether or not the information in the laptop fell within the second schedule. I was informed that since proceedings were raised an offer had been made (without prejudice to the issue of ownership of the laptop which is in dispute and also to confidentiality) to hand over the laptop for analysis, but that was described as "too little too late" by Mr Mr Cowan.

[24] Ultimately, Mr Mr Cowan accepted that the only basis upon which the Petitioner could prove that the laptop fell within the Second Schedule of the Petition was after Proof of the averments about the meeting that Mr Mr Robertson sought to delete. He acknowledged that but for those averments being allowed to proceed to Proof the Minute would be destined to fail.

The Petitioner's position on the meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December 2007

[25] The Petitioner's stance is to dispute that the meeting was a "settlement meeting". Esto it was to be regarded as such, then admissions of fact made at settlement meetings can be relied upon, there being no difference between oral and written admissions of fact in this context.

[26] Notwithstanding that Mr Mr Burgess' Affidavit had been referred to without objection during submissions, Mr Mr Cowan argued that Mr Mr Robertson was not entitled to rely on it at a Procedure Roll discussion. It was not incorporated into the pleadings and accordingly could not be referred to. It was in the same position as the expert reports in Eadie Cairns v Programmed Maintenance Painting Limited 1987 S.L.T. 777, where it was held that productions could not be referred to at Procedure Roll unless there was agreement that they were accurate and acceptable. Mr Mr Cowan acknowledged that it may seem incongruous that the Petitioner would not permit reliance on a document that emanated from his own client, but, he stated, it was sworn for a particular purpose and it is not longer accepted as accurate.

[27] Without referring to the Affidavit, he went on, I could draw no inference that it was a settlement meeting unless that was the only reasonable inference from the admitted facts. The Petitioner's stance was that the meeting was more of a "confessional" by the Respondent than a negotiation meeting.

The differing positions on privileged communications taken in the two jurisdictions

[28] If I was prepared to accept that the meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December was a "settlement meeting", it was argued that the averments relating to unequivocal admissions of fact made at that meeting could be relied upon.

[29] The Scottish and English authorities show two different approaches to this. The English approach is context based and the Scottish approach is content based.

In England, protection is given to all privileged communications. In Scotland, even if something bears to be "without prejudice", the court will still look at it if it constitutes an admission of fact. Mr Mr Cowan accepted, as had Mr Mr Robertson, that the matter of the admissibility of oral admissions of fact was undecided in this jurisdiction as it simply had not required to be addressed to date.

[30] In support of his proposition, Mr Mr Cowan relied upon the Scottish cases already referred to by Mr Mr Robertson - Watson-Towers Ltd v McPhail 1986 S.L.T. 617, Daks Simpson Group plc v Kuiper 1994 S.L.T. 689, Gordon v East Kilbride Development Corporation 1995 S.L.T. 62 and Richardson v Quercus Ltd 1999 S.L.T. 596. In addition he cited two Sheriff Court decisions which he said suggested that the approach in Daks v Kuiper had already been recognised in the lower courts before the issue came before the Court of Session - Burns v Burns 1964 S.L.T. 21 and Ware v Edinburgh District Council (1976 SLT 21). However, these decisions also related to written communications.

[31] Considerable reliance was placed on the approach in Daks v Kuiper, where the statement was made first at a meeting and then in correspondence. The issue, argued Mr Mr Cowan, had been whether what was said was a true concession or a statement made for negotiation purposes. If it was the former, then it was admissible. The rationale applied whether the admission or concession is oral or in writing. He accepted that the task of the court is more difficult when dealing with a meeting rather than with the certainty of correspondence, but reiterated that it was the nature of the statement that mattered. In Gordon v East Kilbride Development Corporation the admission was offered gratuitously and was not conditional upon any response by the other party. That was the situation averred here.

[32] So far as the position in England was concerned, Mr Mr Cowan readily acknowledged that there was no exception from privilege for unequivocal admissions of fact in that jurisdiction. The law on the point had developed differently there and it was clear from Unilever v Proctor & Gamble 2000 1 WLR 2436 that the list of exceptions to the rule, while not exhaustive, did not include unequivocal admissions of fact. The difference in approach between the two jurisdictions was highlighted in the English case of The Cadle Co v Hearley [2002] 1 Lloyd's Rep. 143, where the decisions in Daks v Kuiper and Richardson v Quercus on which one party sought to rely were specifically disapproved as not representing the current state of English Law.

[33] Insofar as the English position was helpful, he went on, the decisions in Unilever v Proctor & Gamble and Savings & Investment Bank Ltd (in liquidation) v Fincken [2004] 1 WLR 667 were cases in which the parties to the meeting had agreed that it would be conducted on a without prejudice basis. In the absence of express or implied agreement in this case that that was the basis of the meeting, privilege did not apply. Where parties have a meeting to discuss settlement, they can (at least in England) avoid anything said being used against them by expressly agreeing that the meeting will be conducted on a without prejudice basis.

[34] In conclusion Mr Mr Cowan said that in order to understand whether or not the Petitioner's position is correct, the court does have to embark on an exploration in evidence of what took place at the meeting.

Decision

[35] It was common ground between the parties that conduct alleged to constitute contempt of court should be clearly and distinctly averred (Byrne v Ross, supra.) The first issue to be addressed is whether the Petitioner's Minute will fail even if he proves all of his averments.

[36] The Minute claims that the Respondent failed to obtemper the court's interlocutor of 7 ~~December~~ December 2007 by failing to inform the Commissioner immediately of the whereabouts of a laptop which, with the information and documents contained therein, fell within the scope of the Petition because it was being used in a business activity referred to in ~~para~~ para 3(c) of the Second Schedule to the Petition. The Minute avers that the despatch note found in the respondent's home and relating to the laptop in question was dated 20 ~~November~~ November 2007. This is admitted by the Respondent in his answers to the Minute. It is averred that the business now known as ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited was known as Radar DS Limited prior to 27 ~~November~~ November 2007. Radar DS Limited is, it was accepted, a name materially similar to "RDS Limited" and "Radar Dimensional Survey Limited", two of the listed names in the Second Schedule. On the face of the averments in the Minute, the business entity carried out by ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services Limited and Radar DS Limited is the same. Accordingly, if the Minuter is able to prove that the laptop was used for the business activity of Radar DS Limited, it may well fall within the terms of the Second Schedule, certainly for any material relating to the period 20 to 27 ~~November~~ November 2007 and probably also for the period 27 ~~November~~ November to 10 ~~December~~ December 2007, as the business activity would be the business activity of Radar DS Limited, albeit using a different name. Accordingly, at this stage it cannot be said that the averments in the Minute are irrelevant insofar as they claim that the material in the laptop falls within the Second Schedule to the Petition.

[37] However, it was accepted on behalf of the Minuter that it would not be possible to prove the link between ~~3B Consultancy~~3B Consultancy Services and the business activities named in the Petition without the averments relating to the meeting between the parties on 10 ~~December~~ December. This requires consideration of the law relating to privileged communications.

[38] So far as the nature of the meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December 2007 is concerned, I have had regard to the Affidavit of Mr Mr Burgess. Affidavits lodged by the Petitioner, without any supplementary affidavit having been lodged to clarify or try to withdraw the statements made therein, can in my view be referred to at debate. They are not in the same position as the expert reports in Eadie Cairns v Programmed Maintenance Painting Limited. They represent sworn testimony and need not be spoken to by a witness. The rule against referring to productions at Procedure Roll Debate without agreement of parties arises from the nature of productions as being documents that require to be proved. Affidavits lodged in process do not fall into that category. They constitute evidence, unlike reports and other documents lodged as productions, which cannot constitute evidence by reason only of their having been so lodged. . Questions may arise as to the weight to be attached to Affidavit evidence, if it remains untested by cross examination. In this case , however, it is the party against whose favour the Affidavit is sworn ~~that~~ who seeks to rely it for the purpose of illustrating the nature of the meeting. It is clear from the Affidavit that the meeting was a "settlement meeting". Even if I had not been prepared to take it into account, I would have held that the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the undisputed facts surrounding the meeting was that it was a settlement meeting. It took place later in the day of the Commission of 10 ~~December~~ December, it was instigated by the Respondent who wanted to meet and it took place at solicitors' offices. It would be difficult to infer that the subject matter of the meeting was anything other than the recently raised litigation.

[39] A more difficult issue is whether or not there was agreement, express or implied, that the discussions at the meeting were to be treated as privileged and thus unable to be founded upon in litigation. I accept that without solicitors present it may be less likely that there would be express agreement on this using the expression "without prejudice" usually adopted by advisers. However, there would appear to be a dispute in fact about whether or not this settlement meeting was being conducted on an open basis o~~r not~~. Having accepted that it was a settlement meeting, it may be that relatively little evidence is required to imply agreement that it was intended to be privileged. However, tThe Respondent has an averment that the discussion was to be "off the record" so far as the parties were concerned. The Petitioner has a positive averment that there was no such agreement. That dispute has to be resolved. Notwithstanding the terms of the Respondent's second plea in law , it was accepted by Mr Mr Robertson that settlement meetings would only be shielded by the cloak of privilege if agreement so to shield them was express or could be implied from the circumstances. There are two conflicting assertions about this matter and nothing in the undisputed facts points to the only reasonable inference being that there was such an agreement. In my view, evidence will be required to resolve the dispute about this in the present case.

[40] Turning to the question of whether a distinction can be drawn between oral admissions and written admissions, it seems to me that the authorities in this jurisdiction have drawn a distinction between (i) statements or communications made or effected in an attempt to achieve extra judicial settlement, such as an offer to pay a sum of money without prejudice to liability and (ii) admissions of fact made within the context of a privileged communication. Privilege attaches to the first type of statement but not the second. No distinction appears to have been drawn between oral admissions of fact and written admission of fact. As it happens, all the decisions have related to written communications that were stated, on the face of it, to be "without prejudice."

[41] In Daks Simpson Group plc v Kuiper, reference was made to the Canadian case of Kirschbaum v "Our Voices" Publishing Co [1971] 1 O.R. 737, where it was said that the question to be considered in this context was - "...what was the view and intention of the party in making the admission; whether it was to concede a fact hypothetically, in order to effect a settlement, or to declare a fact really to exist."

Similarly, in Richardson v Quercus, it was said that the effect of the words "without prejudice" had to be judged on the facts of each situation. Without enquiry into the factual background of an allegation that an admission material to the dispute has been made, the issue of whether privilege can be said to attach to it cannot be properly addressed. In this case there are too many unresolved issues surrounding the meeting and the nature of the statements said to have been made at it. It would be premature to make a decision on whether and to what extent the alleged admission of fact can be taken into account before evidence as to whether it was ever agreed that the meeting would be covered by the cloak of privilege.

[42] But I do not consider that evidence led at the hearing should be restricted to that matter alone. All evidence of the facts and circumstances relative to the meeting between the parties should be put before the court so that the content and nature of any statements proved to have been made can properly be determined . Even if the meeting was agreed to be subject to privilege, the Minute contends that admissions made by the Respondent were "clear and unequivocal". That is denied by the Respondent. That issue will require to be resolved . [ Thereafter, if appropriate, the Respondent's argument could be renewed, but would be determined against a background of established facts, as suggested in Richardson v Quercus. ~~.........~~

[43] In conclusion, I am not persuaded that I should delete the averments regarding the alleged admissions made at the meeting of 10 ~~December~~ December 2007 before proof and I will, accordingly , repel the Respondent's second plea in law, but leave his first plea in law standing .

[44] I shall meantime reserve all questions of expenses.

Scottish Court of Session Decisions