On Thursday 1 January 2026, commercial litigation in England and Wales will become more transparent. New Practice Direction 51ZH (PD 51 ZH) will come into effect on Thursday 1 January 2026 as part of a two-year scheme. The pilot effectively changes the default position – providing non-parties with access to key court documents without having to ask the court for permission.
1. What is this new pilot scheme?
The key features of the new pilot scheme are as follows:
- Scope. PD 51ZH applies to hearings and trials in the Commercial Court, London Circuit Commercial Court and the Financial List but not initially to other Business and Property Courts. It will not apply to ex parte proceedings, hearings which take place in private, or where there already exists confidentiality or anonymisation orders. Following review of the success of the pilot, the practice direction is intended to be extended further, most likely to the Business and Property Courts.
- Applicable documents. Certain core documents used in open hearings (termed “public domain documents”) – such as witness statements, expert reports, skeleton arguments and opening and closing submissions will be added to a public‐facing side of the Court’s electronic filing system.
- Duration. PD 51ZH will run for an initial period of two years – from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027. It has been confirmed that PD 51ZH will apply to both new proceedings and to cases already listed in the Commercial Court and Financial List. This means that existing proceedings currently ongoing in the relevant court divisions will be subject to PD 51ZH from 1 January 2026.
- Confidential documents. It will be possible to seek Filing Modification Orders (FMOs) to redact or withhold parts of documents, which contain genuinely confidential or commercially sensitive information.
- Sanctions for non-compliance. Parties who fall foul of PD 51ZH will be required to re-file any “public domain documents” on CE-file. This of course included expert reports.
2. What is the background to the scheme?
PD51 ZH adopts the US model of public access to court documents – moving towards greater transparency with the aim of closing the “open justice gap”.
The scheme builds on the Supreme Court case of Dring v Cape where the court ruled that non-parties can apply to view documents placed before the court and referred to during a hearing.
However, this scheme advances on the current position where non-party applicants must justify their request for court documents by showing that it is in the interest of open justice.
3. How will this pilot impact expert witness?
Practice Direction 51ZH (PD 51ZH) will impact expert witnesses by making their reports, including all annexes and appendices, publicly accessible by default when used in public hearings within the pilot courts. This increases the likelihood of wider scrutiny of their opinion.
For example, easy access for the media, regulatory and professional bodies and the public means expert evidence is more likely to face broader examination beyond the immediate parties to the litigation. Of course, wider scrutiny is something that experts should already be aware of – as highlighted in the case of, Lorimer-Wing v Hashmi [2025] EWHC 2757 where an expert’s report while not initially challenged in court was investigated and subsequently challenged by the expert’s professional body.