REUTERS | Rebecca Naden
March 18, 2019

Adding costs of previous unsuccessful claim: Playboy Club London Ltd v Banca Nazionale del Lavora SpA

REUTERS | Jeenah Moon
March 14, 2019

Open justice: rule changes to increase transparency in the civil courts

From 6 April 2019, a number of changes to the Civil Procedure Rules will come into effect with the intention of reinforcing the principle of open justice and clarifying how it operates within the civil justice system. While some of those changes simply bring the rules into line with principles established in case law, there are a number of new provisions which may have an impact on the conduct of hearings in the civil courts, including a new power to direct the compilation or sharing of a summary of a hearing with an unrepresented party. Continue reading →

REUTERS |
March 12, 2019

Electronic time-recording and summary assessment: 104th CPR update two-year pilot scheme

In this blog, I focus on the costs aspects of the Practice Direction amendments contained in the 104th CPR update. Firstly, there is a change to Practice Direction 3E with a replacement Annex C Precedent R Budget Discussion Report. Not much to comment on in that regard; case law has previously dealt with issues as to incurred costs when budgeting and the splitting of profit costs from disbursements in the new form is no great shakes (when preparing a Precedent R in the past, I used to show clear workings on any proposed reductions in any event. Perish the thought that counsel or the court at a costs and case management conference actually have to have a calculator to hand!). Continue reading →

REUTERS | Tony Gentile
March 8, 2019

Is permission required to adduce expert evidence at an interlocutory hearing?

Parties often seek to rely upon expert evidence, in particular evidence of foreign law, at interlocutory hearings. Commonly, an expert report will be adduced even though the expert is not expected to attend, or be cross-examined at, the hearing. Such hearings very often occur at an early stage in proceedings, in particular in applications for service out or disputing the jurisdiction of the English courts. Rarely, when this happens, has the party relying on the expert evidence already been before the court to seek permission to rely on such evidence. The question is, should they? Continue reading →

REUTERS | Yiannis Kourtoglou
March 1, 2019

What happens when a solicitor provides the client with no guidance as to costs?

You would hope that, these days, situations where a solicitor has provided his client no guidance as to costs would be rare. One came before Master Leonard in a Solicitors Act 1974 assessment of a bill for work representing the client’s son, who had been arrested and charged with murder following a fight in Crete. The client’s son denied any involvement. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Darrin Zammit Lupi
February 28, 2019

Adverse costs insurance: differing perspectives

Whilst attending a conference recently, I was surprised to hear a representative of a well-known funder state that there are significant capacity issues within the after the event (ATE) insurance market and that it was becoming increasingly difficult for claimants to obtain adverse costs insurance for higher levels of indemnity. The funder went on to share their view that a claimant’s best chance of obtaining ATE insurance is through a litigation funder given that many of the funders have binders in place with ATE insurers that conveniently circumvent the capacity issues this funder perceives a claimant might otherwise face. Continue reading →