Senior commercial judge Mr Justice Aikens has earmarked the ongoing Box Clever dispute as a 'guinea pig' case, in which he will test the post-BCCI working party recommendations to streamline large-scale commercial litigation.

Aikens, the presiding judge on the case, told Legal Week the long-running litigation arising from the collapse of television rental company Box Clever is being used to test some of the key parts of the blueprint drawn up by the working party late last year.

City litigation partners believe the case could now act as a model for future litigation and have pointed to the unusually high number of trial management recommendations that have been made in this case.

The dispute was brought by French bank Ixis against German lender WestLB, Canadian bank CIBC and private equity house Terra Firma between 2004 and 2005.

It emerged last week that the dispute has been settled against all defendants except Terra Firma, which is still facing claims from Ixis and WestLB. Herbert Smith acted for CIBC, Ixis was advised by Stephenson Harwood and Terra Firma has instructed Lovells.

Simmons & Simmons litigation partner Jonathan Kelly, who was leading the team advising WestLB, said: "The fact that Aikens was assigned to the trial gave him the opportunity to think about how these recommendations would work in practice and he clearly took that opportunity."

The commercial court working party was set up in late 2006 to cut the time and cost of complex litigation. A number of its recommendations have been employed in the Box Clever case, including a docket system for judges, more informal dialogue on procedural and technical issues and a limit on the length of opening arguments.

Kelly added: "As the case had almost reached trial by the time the recommendations were reported, they could not apply to the earlier stages of litigation. However, on the trial management aspects, Mr Justice Aikens did an excellent job."