REUTERS | Russell Cheyne
December 17, 2019

Approval of budgets

With its introduction as part of the Jackson reforms in April 2013, costs budgeting was intended to be used as a tool to streamline the costs procedure in litigation by active court management of parties’ costs from an early stage. In theory, if a receiving party litigates within an approved costs budget, only those costs which have been categorised as “incurred” will fall to be assessed at the conclusion of the matter, thus either limiting the scope of, or negating the requirement for detailed assessment. Continue reading →

REUTERS | David Mdzinarishvili
December 12, 2019

Fixed costs: can you contract out of the regime?

Fixed costs under CPR 45. The upside: the winning lawyer recovers costs in a fixed amount depending upon the stage at which the case has been completed, whether or not work to that value has been done. The downside: the lawyer does not recover any extra costs for doing work which the fixed costs do not cover, so that case will have been run at a loss (note that there is a “safety valve” under CPR 45.29J which allows sums in excess of fixed costs to be recovered in “exceptional circumstances”, but it is an uphill struggle to persuade the court to do so). However, where the fixed costs regime does not apply because the case is proceeding in the multi-track, the party who wins with costs is entitled to have them assessed by the court if they cannot be agreed: see CPR 47. In those circumstances, the sky is the limit, provided those costs are reasonable, necessary and if payable on the standard basis, also proportionate. Continue reading →