At the Federal Court’s annual town hall held on May 12, 2016, the court provided an update and made some new announcements, including new Case Management Guidelines for NOC Applications.

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the Town Hall, or the Judges’ Dinner so the following are based on the presentation slides and comments from colleagues. Please let me know of any omissions or errors.

NOC Guidelines

The guidelines (PDF) include typical hearing length (2 or 3 days), an agenda for the first case management conference, the desirability for claim charts from the parties in advance of the hearing, an agenda for a hearing management conference, outlines for compendiums.

Judges

Five new judges were appointed since the previous Town Hall (Gleeson, Camp, Elliott, Roussel and McDonald) and four past or upcoming retirements (O’Keefe, Beaudry, Hansen and Hughes).

Strategic Plan

The Federal Court released its strategic plan (PDF)

Rule Changes

Upcoming rule amendments were discussed including some substantive amendments, and some ‘clean-up’ amendments to be pre-published soon.

Experimental Testing

A revised practice notice on experimental testing was circulated that allowed for a shortened notice period that the two months identified in the practice notice. The revised notice does not appear to be online on the Federal Court’s website yet. Here is a PDF as circulated.