Obtaining copies or corrispondance prior to fileing a claim against 3rd party

[steveeasy]

Hi,
I am in the middle of fileing a claim against another party for breach of contract. Unfortunately and embarrassingly my laptop was taken to the repair shop and removed the hard drive. All my correspondence has been lost. I should have backed it up. It was such a blow,ive considered leaving the matter but unfortunately iam going to have to pursue the matter. I have already tried to obtain information from the other party and they have refused as well as refusing video conferencing to try to resolve the dispute. is there a method to obtain all information including all email correspondence from the party.
Thank you
Steveeasy

[char1ie]

Is the other party a company? I have filed subject access requests to obtain all correspondence relating to me. By law companies have to hand over all communication relating to the third party making the request. Obviously this may not work if the other party is a crooked small player but it should work for bigger organisations.

[steveeasy]

Hi,
Thank you for your reply. Its the following A company limited by guarantee and not having share capital with charitable status. Registered in England and Wales Company no: Tried to submit both fr4eedom of information and subject access requests before and refused.

Many thanks
steveeasy

[Manxman]

I have a feeling (but I'm not certain) that companies can ignore SARs if legal proceedings are pending.

There may be other legal ways of getting the info from them (eg some sort of disclosure).

See what others say...

[legalwoo]

You have a couple of options.

1) You could use GDPR subject access request to obtain anything stored on you.

2) You could request the documents during document disclosure process before a hearing.

Unfortunately you run the risk that the respondent may simply deny holding any information on you. If this is the case, they could never use articles which you have specifically requested and which they may be concealing, against you since this would be incriminating.

Depending on the type of case you may rarely be able to rely on balance of probabilities and burden of proof to induce them to disclose something in their defence and work from that.

Other than that, the burden of proof falls on the claimant and if you your evidence is lost you stand little chance of success.