Just because it’s reasonable doesn’t mean it’s proportionate
- 09 June 2016
- Litigation and dispute resolution
The litigation (as so often seems to be the case) concerned a relationship between an anonymous Claimant and a premiership footballer. The Claimant lost her phone and it came into the possession of the Sunday People newspaper. Although the phone was eventually returned to the Claimant, two years later she issued a claim for an injunction to restrain use of her confidential information and damages. She entered into a conditional fee agreement (CFA) with both her solicitor and counsel and took out an after the event (ATE) insurance premium. (Generally, additional CFA and ATE liabilities are no longer recoverable in litigation but the Claimant benefitted from transitional provisions for privacy cases).
The case settled before trial upon payment of £20,000, some low value non-financial relief and MGN’s agreement to pay the Claimant’s costs.
The Claimant sought costs in the sum of £241,817. This included a success fee on her solicitor’s CFA of 60% and 75% on counsel’s CFA and an ATE premium of £61,480, including tax.
On assessment the Senior Costs Judge reduced the costs payable to £84,855 – just 35% of the total sum claimed. He adopted a two-stage process to arrive at this figure.
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There are several important lessons to be drawn from this decision.
This decision may give some encouragement to litigants to bring proceedings, in the knowledge that they will not be ordered to pay disproportionate costs if unsuccessful. Equally, it is clear warning that if litigation is conducted in a disproportionate manner the successful party will have to foot the shortfall in its costs.
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