What is Commercial Litigation in Victoria?

The plain-English version, for the person actually in the dispute

Commercial litigation is the process of resolving a business dispute with the courts standing behind the negotiation. Most of the work goes into building a position strong enough that the other side pays, performs or settles rather than test you at trial, and comparatively little of it happens in front of a judge. If someone has just threatened to “see you in court”, the odds are high that neither of you will ever see one. What happens instead is a structured contest of documents, deadlines and offers, and the side that understands the process usually wins it. If that side is not currently you, call 1800 130 120. The first call is free.

The stages your dispute will move through

Almost every commercial matter in Victoria climbs the same ladder, and you can get off at any rung.

It starts with a letter of demand that frames the claim and sets a deadline. Many disputes end right there, which is why the letter should be drafted by a lawyer rather than fired off in anger. If it does not resolve, the parties usually try without-prejudice negotiation, a protected exchange that cannot be quoted in court. Next comes filing: a statement of claim, a defence, and pleadings that force both sides to commit to a story. Discovery follows, where each side hands over its relevant documents, including the ones it would rather not. Then comes mediation, usually ordered by the court, where most matters settle. Only after all of that does a trial happen, and if you win, enforcement turns the judgment into money.

A corporate governance dispute can skip the bottom rungs entirely and open with a members’ meeting notice or an urgent court application, because a company being run badly cannot wait for a letter of demand to run its course.

Victorian court rules sit over the whole process. Every party and every lawyer must act honestly, narrow the issues and avoid wasting the court’s time, and judges punish game-playing with costs orders.

The useful way to read that ladder is as a system of pressure with an exit at every rung. Strategy is deciding which exit you are aiming for and building the file that gets the other side to walk through it with you. Make that decision in week one, because by month nine most of the cheap exits are behind you.

Courts, VCAT and private resolution, honestly compared

A court is not always the right forum. The Magistrates’ Court of Victoria takes civil claims up to $100,000 and is the cheap, quick end of the system. The County Court has unlimited civil jurisdiction and hears most mid-sized commercial fights. The Supreme Court’s Commercial Court list is where complex corporate and high-value matters go, with a managing judge, tight timetables and early court-ordered mediation. Company and consumer-law matters can also run in the Federal Court.

VCAT is the outlier. It is cheaper and less formal, it hears retail and commercial lease disputes, and retail lease disputes must first go to mediation at the Victorian Small Business Commission. The trade-off is that VCAT parties usually wear their own costs win or lose, so a strong claim can be worth less there than in a court. Then there is private resolution, where mediation and arbitration can resolve a dispute without any public filing at all. Which of these is best depends entirely on your dispute, and picking it early is a large part of what you hire a litigator for.

What it costs, and why most people never find out the full number

Litigation costs scale with how far up the ladder you climb, which is exactly why so few matters reach the top. A demand letter is the cheap end. A trial costs multiples of it. Between the two sits the settlement zone where most disputes end, and a successful party usually recovers a portion of its costs from the loser. What your matter needs depends on the forum, the issues and how hard the other side digs in, and our commercial litigation lawyers scope that with you on the first call, free. If the numbers do not justify the fight, you hear that on the same call, before you have spent anything finding out.

What to do with all this

If a dispute is live or looming, call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page. Fifteen minutes is usually enough for a straight view on your position, your forum and your first step. If the dispute is about money owed to you, our debt recovery page covers the fastest tools. GET FREE ADVICE.