Solicitor Has an Interest if a Reasonable Person Thinks it Would Affect Their Advice to the Client: The Court of Appeal held that, for the purposes of Regulation 4 of the Conditional Fee Agreements Regulations 2000, a solicitor had an interest if a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts would think that the existence of the interest might affect the advice given by the solicitor to their client. Whilst membership of a panel of a claims management company could constitute such an ...
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Judge Entitled to Deny Successful Party Costs of Litigation: The Court of Appeal held that although it was unusual to deny a successful party the whole of its costs of a trial, in the circumstances the trial judge had not misdirected himself as a matter of law or failed adequately to reflect his reasoning in the judgment. The Respondent had raised a number of issues on which it had failed altogether and on some of those it was possible to take the view that the evidence was so inadequate that th ...
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Application for Non-Party Costs Should be Dealt With by Trial Judge: Andrew Smith J. held that the trial judge should hear an application for a non-party costs order unless there were compelling reasons for him not to do so. This was so even though the judge had expressed a view about the conduct of the non-party. It had not been wrong of the judge to raise the possibility of an application for a non-party costs order. Even if the judge had erred in doing so, a fair minded and informed observer ...
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Court of Appeal’s decision in Carver was of General Application: Jackson J. held that the Court of Appeal’s decision in Carver v. BAA Plc was of general application in relation to how a court ought to approach the issue of costs in circumstances where one party had made an offer that was nearly but not quite sufficient and the other party had rejected that offer outright without any attempt to negotiate. The present case was a complicated commercial dispute in which each party had been advancing ...
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No Wasted Costs Where Material Produced as soon as its Significance Realised: The Court of Appeal held that a Wasted Costs Order against a solicitor was not justified where material had been disclosed as soon as its significance became obvious. Although the disclosure given by the solicitor may have been defective, the issue was whether he was clearly and obviously in breach of his duty to the court to ensure that the client discharged his duty to give proper disclosure; no clear picture could e ...
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Clear Offer to Settle Bill Could be a ‘Special Circumstance’: It was held on an appeal to the Queens Bench Division that a clear without prejudice offer to settle a bill of costs with its client, made in proper time and in proper form, was capable of being a special circumstance that could reverse the statutory presumption under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974 that the firm were liable to pay the costs of the detailed assessment proceedings. However, in the instant case, there were no spec ...
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Claimant limited to costs recoverable in the Small Claim Track: In a claim where the claimant had claimed damages for credit hire but the claim had failed at trial because the judge had held that the claim should properly have been brought for loss of profits, HHJ Oliver-Jones QC held that prior to a Part 36 offer by the defendant, the claimant should be limited to the costs recoverable under CPR 27 as, had the claim been pleaded correctly in the first place, it would have been allocated to the ...
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Respondents who Joined Proceedings of their Own Volition should Bear their Own Costs: The Court of Appeal held that, in a situation where the Applicant’s insurance provider had stated that they were only prepared to guarantee the costs of the First Respondent on an Appeal, it was in the interests of justice that the two remaining Respondents who had joined themselves to the proceedings of their own volition should be compelled to bear their own costs. The appeal was a broad appeal, which constit ...
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Limitation Period ran from Date of Revocation of Legal Aid certificate: The Court held that the limitation period in respect of a claim to recover monies owed in respect of a legal aid certificate ran from the date of its revocation. There was no reason why the position should be any different in respect of costs that were payable as for costs that had been paid. The Court rejected the Respondent’s contention that that the cause of action had not crystallised until the costs had been assessed or ...
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Insurance Company Personally Liable for Costs of Claim: The Court of Appeal held that, as the appellant insurance company had funded, controlled and directed the defence of a personal injury claim in its own interest, even where that interest did not coincide with the interest of its insured, it was appropriate to Order it to personally pay the costs of the claim pursuant to section 51 of the Supreme Court Act 1981. The insurance company had turned down an offer of settlement, which it later tra ...
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