The gathering was an occasion for Europe’s leading civil procedure experts to gather to present the advanced results achieved by the project’s current and former working groups. Speakers included former ELI President, Diana Wallis, Deputy Secretary-General of UNIDROIT, Anna Veneziano, Dean of the University of Vienna, Paul Oberhammer and current member of the ELI Executive Raffaele Sabato.

In total, four panel sessions took place during the Conference. Each session was chaired by a member of the ELI-UNIDROIT Steering Committee, accompanied by the Reporters and Members of the respective Working Group and independent discussants.

The first panel gave a good overview of the activities of the current and former Working Groups and highlighted pertinent aspects of the project. Topics included: Judgments; Lis Pendens; Access to Information and Evidence; Appeals; and methodological issues which arose in the context of the work of the Working Groups on Service and Due Notice of Proceeding and Costs. The panelists in the second session focused on Parties, Collective Redress and Funding.

On the following day, a panel was dedicated to the challenges of modern technology and artificial intelligence (AI) and civil procedure. The last panel focused on the structure of the rules of civil procedure and the work conducted by the Structure Working Group, whose goal it is is to coordinate the emerging draft rules within a functional whole.

In total, over 50 legal experts from across Europe attended the ELI-UNIDROIT Conference at ERA. Comments were wide-ranging, insightful and properly challenging. As the work on the structure of the rules nears completion, participants of the Conference had a chance to get a sense of the entire project. The organisers would like to thank all of the speakers and participants of the Conference for their helpful contributions. The last joint Steering Committee meeting of the project’s Co-Reporters, Advisers and Observers will take place on 25–26 February 2019.