Expert Witnesses Have Their Many Days In Court In C7 Case
The Age
Monday May 29, 2006
AS THE C7 case enters its fourth week of expert witnesses, Justice Ronald Sackville has criticised the "massive duplication" in economic and accounting material, warning that his task and the "almost inevitable" appeals will be unmanageable unless the issues are narrowed.
On Friday the judge asked both Seven Network and the 19 companies it is suing over the 2002 closure of its pay TV program supplier C7 to find some common ground before they prepared closing submissions. His view on overspending could affect how he awards costs in the case, on which Seven alone has spent almost $100 million so far. "I still don't know what the point was of having two experts' reports on competition and market issues for the applicants . . . (or) having four competition and market experts for the respondents," the judge said. Earlier this month, he calculated that expert reports tendered by Seven and its main targets, News Ltd, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd, Telstra and Optus, totalled 3006 pages. On Friday, he said that unless the issues were reduced, he would be unable to follow the normal practice of ruling on all significant factual disputes as "there are so many possible combinations and permutations that it is not going to be feasible to address everything". He said this could affect the conduct of appeals, referring to a trade practices case he heard in 2000 involving Visy Paper where he made findings of fact that were not strictly necessary given his final conclusion. "In the end, the High Court took a different view of the law, and the fact-finding that I had done provided the basis for the conclusions that were reached," he said. There were "simply too many issues" in the C7 case for him to do the same. "Therefore, the parties need to give some consideration, as I will, to what is going to be a manageable approach in this case, bearing in mind the almost inevitability of appeals regardless of the conclusion or conclusions that I reach." The judge last commented on the likelihood of appeals in December. He said that "members of the public, not to mention the shareholders of the public companies involved, must wonder how it is that such huge amounts of money can be expended on legal costs in order to resolve a dispute which, after all, is ultimately about money". Since May 8, the court has heard from five economists on market definition and market power. Today Nobel prize laureate Daniel McFadden, a professor of economics from University of California, Berkeley, will begin giving evidence about the damages Seven should receive. Expert evidence is scheduled to run until mid-June.
© 2006 The Age