Expert conflicts – the importance of an expert disclosing their history of dealing with the person on whose behalf they are acting

Recent case law has highlighted that a failure to elicit early disclosure of any conflict of interest between an expert and the party instructing it may influence the judge’s assessment of what weight to give to the expert evidence. As confidence in the independence and impartiality of experts plays an important role when evaluating the competing and finely balanced judgements of rival experts, it is scrupulous that any potential or existing conflicts between an expert and the party instructing it are disclosed as early as possible.