More than three-quarters of UK businesses claim to have faced court action over the past 12 months, with 84% saying they expect the number of legal disputes to either stay the same or increase over the next year.
The 2006 Litigation Trends Survey published by law firm Fulbright & Jaworski found that an emerging trend is that companies are spending substantially more on dealing with regulatory enforcement issues – 58% of UK respondents to the survey said that they have received a regulatory proceeding in the past 12 months.
The research reveals a worrying increase in the amount of litigation faced by UK companies: last year, just 66% of respondents said they faced a court action compared with 78% this year. Perhaps even more worrying was the revelation that the percentage of those respondents who faced more than 50 court actions tripled from 5% to 15%.
According to Fulbright & Jaworski, the average large corporate incurred litigation fees of $10.8m (£5.8m), an increase of more than 30% on last year’s figure of $8m. “All companies have to face up to the challenge of working in a complex regulatory environment and must ensure they are prepared to address current regulatory issues and anticipate future regulatory changes,” says Lista Cannon, head of European disputes at the firm.

Comments
Have your say on this article