Criminal and Civil Litigation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal and Civil Litigation - Essay Example The scenario of Foster and Powell falls under the Anti-Trust laws. The Civil Litigation Process has the following stages a) Stages of Civil Litigation i) Issuing the Statement of Claim; the litigation process always starts with issuing a statement setting out facts and legal grounds supporting the Plaintiff’s claim against the defendant (The Law Society, 2012). ii) Replying to the statement of defense; the moment the Defense has been submitted to the Plaintiff, the Plaintiff has a chance to reply the statement of defense. iii) Affidavit of Documents; this process is always after all parties have received their claims; for instance at this stage the parties will prepare, swear and serve their Affidavit of Document (Heydary Hamilton PC, 2011). This is a sworn document containing all the documents that each party has in possession and are relevant for the litigation process between the parties. In the case of Foster where we have a disputed contract, the documents required are a copy of the contract, and letters between the parties must and should be included in the Affidavit of Documents (The Law Society, 2012). ... or Discovery; in case the parties are unable to clear their differences at the mediation meeting, the lawyers of the Plaintiff get an opportunity to ask defendants questions under oath and vice-versa (Heydary Hamilton PC, 2011). vi) Undertakings and Motions before trial; during the examination for discovery stage, some information especially of the party answering questions may not be readily available. Given this situation, parties can provide answers and copies of the missing documents following the discovery (Heydary Hamilton PC, 2011). On agreement to do this, the parties are given an undertaking. However, if a party refuses to comply with the undertaking he is likely to face punishment of a Judge or Master. vii) Trial Scheduling Court; after all refusals and undertakings have been dealt with, the litigants will attend in front of a Judge to get a trial date. With regard to the simplicity or complexity and length of trial, will determine how fast the litigants can have their matt ers resolved (Heydary Hamilton PC, 2011). viii) Settlement Conference; this occurs before trial and is always before the Judge. Normally, the settlement conference takes place after all parties have agreed to go to trial and hence they will be possessing documents that they will be relying on together with reports from their respective experts (Heydary Hamilton PC, 2011). ix) Trial; in many cases, litigation cases do not reach the trial stage as it is expensive and hence majority of litigation disputes are resolved early enough. However, if the disputes are not resolved early, then the trial is inevitable (Heydary Hamilton PC, 2011). The trial stage is the last step in litigation. b) i) Application made in case of the missing agreement The dispute between Foster and Powell, if Foster