Category: Costs Budgeting

When a simple theory becomes a complex reality; the interplay between costs management and detailed assessment

jochaseLeave a comment

The Jackson reforms envisaged a world where legal costs would be dealt with through the click of a button. LJ Jackson introduced costs budgeting in a bid to control the level of costs spent, he revamped the concept of proportionality to limit costs for claims where costs incurred considerably exceeded the sums in issue, and he created the electronic bill of costs in a bid to remove the pain staking process of multi day detailed assessment hearings.

However, theories do not always play out well in practice. The plethora of costs case law relating to costs management, proportionality, and bills of costs since the reforms means that it is crucial, now more than ever, that a litigator approaches costs correctly if they are to reap the full reward of their labour.

Regardless of how a case evolves, if a litigator is fortunate to be on the favourable side of an inter partes costs order then, providing the Court orders that costs are to be assessed by way of detailed assessment (and not summary assessment), it is paramount that they present the costs claimed correctly if they are to limit their outlay on detailed assessment costs and maximise their profit recovery.

First and foremost, the litigator should be on the front foot. If the litigation is approaching a mediation or joint settlement meeting, it is wise for the litigator to know exactly where they stand in terms of costs. This is particularly important if there is a sense that the paying party may have an appetite to do a deal on both damages and costs. If the case has been subject to costs management, it is crucial that the costs incurred are carefully considered and calculated to show the extent to which the costs fall (or exceed, with reasons for such) within budget. This is the first question that any competent paying party representative is going to ask. If a precedent Q has been prepared, and the litigator is armed with sufficient information for reasons why any costs may fall outside scope (such that the Court did not provide for a mediation and therefore the costs of such fall outside the budget scope) then any negotiations are more likely to prove fruitful, whilst saving the paying party the additional cost of detailed assessment proceedings. This would not be possible without a phased breakdown of costs.

If, however, the parties are unable to reach an amicable agreement as to costs, it will likely be necessary for a full bill of costs to be prepared in order for detailed assessment proceedings to be commenced. This is where it is crucial that a costs lawyer who fully understands the intricacies of costs management orders and the inter play with the bill of costs should be utilised.

The SCCO’s decision from 29 October 2018 in the matter Vertannes v United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust shows just how crucial this understanding is. This matter had been subject to a costs management order. The Court then proceeded to order that revised budgets should be prepared to reflect a significant change in the litigation. The parties prepared but were unable to agree revised budgets, and the claim settled before the Court considered the revised budgets. The Claimant proceeded to file a bill of costs that failed to comply with CPR 47 PD 47.5.8(8) (“the bill must be divided into separate parts so as to distinguish between the costs claimed for each phase of the last approved or agreed budget”), the Claimant’s argument being that the Court never approved the revised budget. However, the Court found that at no time had the original costs management order been replaced, and that the bill should therefore have been split so as to reflect the position against the original costs management order. The Claimant was, therefore, ordered to re-draw the bill of costs.

The inter play between costs management and detailed assessment can be complex. The Court may make multiple costs management orders during the life of a claim, where by a previous order is “topped up”, which impacts the way in which a bill is drawn, or the Court may elect to only costs management certain phases of the case, which, again, has an impact on the bill. It is, therefore, crucial that the costs lawyer is aware of all the elements of the case that will impact the drafting of the bill so as to ensure compliance with CPR 47 and the accompanying practice direction, together with maximising recovery.

Joanne Chase is a Senior Associate Costs Lawyer in the Costs and Litigation Funding Department at Clarion Solicitors.

You can contact her at joanne.chase@clarionsolicitors.com and 0113 336 3327, or the Clarion Costs Team on 0113 246 0622.

Advertisements

THIRD PARTY FUNDING – A VIABLE OPTION FOR 21st CENTURY LITIGATION (Part 1)

Kris KilsbyLeave a comment

This series of blog articles will address the increasing viability of third party funding as an alternative to traditional litigation funding methods. It will look at how the law has developed historically and how the Court now approaches third party funding and the potential liability of third party funders.

The first part of this series will explore how the Court’s attitude to third party funding has changed significantly from the 19th through to the 21st Century.

Champerty and Maintenance

The historic position taken by the Court in respect of third party funding was that it was illegal and tortious. Two offences had developed through the common law: champerty and maintenance.

Champerty referred to when a person who did not have a legal interest in the matter provided financial assistance to litigation in order to receive a share of the profits.

Maintenance was the procurement of direct or indirect financial assistance from another in order to carry on, or defend, proceedings without lawful justification (British Cash & Parcel Conveyors v Lamson Store Service Co [1908]).

Therefore, the default position was that such agreements, which would be considered third party funding arrangements today, would be considered illegal, tortious and unenforceable. However, even at the turn of the 20th Century, the courts were willing to find such arrangements enforceable as a matter of public policy. For instance, in insolvency proceedings, which by their very nature meant that one party would need financial assistance in order to carry on or defend proceedings (Seear v Lawson (1880)), the Court found that a third party funding agreement was enforceable.

Abolition

The default position changed with the enactment of the Criminal Law Act 1967 (CLA 1967). S.13 CLA 1967 abolished the offences and torts of champerty and maintenance. S.14 CLA 1967 changed the approach of the test, which now started from the presumption that such agreements were enforceable, unless there was a valid reason as a matter of public policy.

Comment

Statutory intervention was important to provide additional certainty and security to parties wishing to enter into third party funding arrangements. However, such an approach cannot be taken for granted outside of the jurisdiction of England and Wales.

Recently, the Supreme Court in Ireland, in the matter of Persona Digital Telephony Ltd v The Minister for Public Enterprise (2017), found a third party funding agreement to be unlawful. This is because the offences of Champerty and Maintenance have not been abolished by statute In Ireland. The Court felt that it is consequentially bound to find such agreements unlawful and that any change of approach was within the remit of the Legislator, not the Judiciary.

In the next part of the series…

The next blog will take a look at how the Court has begun to develop the law in respect of third party funding, with a look at the decision in Factortame Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions No.8 [2002].

This blog was prepared by Kris Kilsby who is an Associate Costs Lawyer at Clarion and part of the Costs Litigation Funding Team.  Kris can be contacted at kris.kilsby@clarionsolicitors.com or on 0113 227 3628.

The new statement of costs goes live on 1 April 2019

Sue FoxLeave a comment

I have further updates regarding the new statement of costs following on from our January newsletter. The pilot scheme will operate from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2021 and will apply to all claims in which costs are to be summarily assessed, whenever they were commenced. There will be two statements of costs which may be used whilst the scheme is in force; the N260A when the costs have been incurred up to an interim application and the N260B when the costs have been incurred up to trial. The N260 will be available in paper/pdf form and in electronic form. Parties are able to use the paper/pdf form only, however if they use the electronic spreadsheet form this must be filed and served in paper form and electronic means. The format has changed and the document schedule now requires the time entries to be dated. 

In cases which have been subject to a costs management order, any party filing the form N260B must also file and serve the precedent Q (which is a summary that details any overspend/underspend for each phase of the budget). Now that the court can identify overspends in the budget, will this additional layer of information result in more costs being summarily assessed and less detailed assessments? Will this assist with applications for payments on account? Will we see the N260B being used at trials that are listed for more than one day, to demonstrate that there hasn’t been any overspend in the budget and resultantly the budgeted costs being allowed in full? Possibly, but only if the incurred costs are identified separately to the estimated costs, please see my earlier blog for a more detailed analysis in that regard.

Sue Fox is a Senior Associate and the Head of Costs Management in the Costs and Litigation Funding Department at Clarion Solicitors. You can contact her at sue.fox@clarionsolicitors.com and 0113 336 3389, or the Clarion Costs Team on 0113 246 0622.

 

THE INDEMNITY PRINCIPLE – WHAT IS IT? IS IT IMPORTANT?

andrewmcaulayLeave a comment

What is the Indemnity Principle?

A long-established principle which effectively means that a successful party cannot recover more in legal costs then they are liable to pay their solicitor under the terms of the contract with their solicitors.

Why does it exist?

To indemnify the winner for the reasonable legal costs incurred on the matter. In practice, the loser contributes to those costs.

If the indemnity principle did not exist, then a losing party could face a costs liability higher than the winner is liable to pay his solicitor. This would mean that a client would make a profit from the costs of the litigation which is not the intention of costs awards. The intention is to reasonably compensate the winner for the legal costs they have incurred.

Please note that there are some exceptions to the indemnity principle, for example, inter-partes claims for costs where the matter was funded by way of a Legal Aid Certificate, and fixed costs claims i.e. where the costs incurred are lower than the costs that can be claimed inter parties.

Key Case Law

Harold v Smith [1860] 5 H & N 381

Costs orders inter-partes are awarded as an indemnity to the receiving party. They are not awarded to impose a punishment on the party who pays them.

Gundry v Sainsbury [1910]

The Court of Appeal confirmed the underlying principle set out in Harold v Smith. The solicitor had acted for no charge and tried (unsuccessfully) to seek costs from the opponent. The court held that the solicitor was not entitled to recover costs as there was no agreement from the client to pay.

J H Milner & Son v Percy Bilton Limited [1966] 1 WLR 1985

Retainer (contract for services by the solicitor) is fundamental to the right to recover costs. No retainer equals no entitlement to recover costs from clients (and therefore no entitlement to costs inter-partes).

Is the Indemnity Principle important?

Taking into account the above cases (which remain good authorities) the indemnity principle is clearly very important and something which every contentious lawyer should have a sound knowledge and understanding of. Failure to do so can lead to serious professional consequences.

The importance of the indemnity principle is best illustrated by the case of Bailey v IBC Vehicles Limited [1998] 3 All ER 570 where the Court said that the signature of a Bill of Costs is that of an officer of the Court and that mis-certification of the Bill is a serious (disciplinary) offence.

In that case Lord Justice Henry said:

“the signature of the Bill of Costs under the rules is effectively a certificate by an officer of the Court that the receiving party’s solicitors are not seeking to recover in relation to any item more than they have agreed to charge under a contentious business agreement. The Court can (and should unless there is evidence to the contrary) assume that his signature to the Bill of Costs shows that the indemnity principle has not been offended”.

When lawyers sign costs budgets, statements of costs for summary assessment and Bills of Costs it is therefore fundamentally important to ensure that there is no breach of the indemnity principle.

I am now going to consider two recent cases regarding the indemnity principle:

Gempride v Jagjit Bamrah & Law Lords of London Limited [2018] EWCA CIV 1367

In this matter, the receiving party’s bill of costs claimed hourly rates higher than those which the client had agreed to pay their solicitor within the retainer. Furthermore, misleading information was provided in Replies to Points of Dispute in respect of the availability of before the event insurance.

The matter proceeded to the Court of Appeal where the Court imposed a penalty for the mis-certification of the Bill of 50% (Part 1 of the Bill of Costs only). Whilst the penalty in the end was not too severe, the real damage for the law firm was to its reputation.

HMRC v Gardiner and Others [2018] EWHC 1716 (QB)

This matter related to an appeal by HMRC in respect of an order for them to pay the Respondents’ costs in tax appeal proceedings. The Respondents were amongst several tax payers challenging penalties imposed by HMRC for incorrect tax returns.

The Respondent’s tax advisors were at the forefront of the work carried out. Counsel was instructed to represent the Respondents and the fees were paid by their tax advisors. HMRC alleged a breach of the indemnity principle (no direct retainer). That argument failed and the key points were as:

  1. There was never an agreement that the Respondents would never pay Counsel’s fees;
  2. Counsel was there to represent the Respondents, not their advisors;
  3. No difference to a trade union funding arrangement; and
  4. The key is a liability to pay (the Respondents were liable to pay the fees that were incurred, but the tax advisors paid them).This is a useful case to rely on where costs have been paid by a third party and a challenge is raised that there has been a breach of the indemnity principle as a result.


    Summary

    As you can see from the authorities, the indemnity principle has been with us for some time. Lord Justice Jackson recommended the abolition of the indemnity principle in his Final Report in 2010. He was of the opinion that the indemnity principle caused more problems than it solved. However, in my view the indemnity principle should always be in place whilst we have a cost shifting environment in England and Wales. Otherwise, it could encourage inflated claims for costs and allow clients to profit on the costs of litigation and therefore increase claims for costs – which would be contrary to the whole purpose of the Jackson Reforms!

    Do you have any views? – please feel free to share them.

    This blog was prepared by Andrew McAulay who is a Partner at Clarion and the Head of the Costs and Litigation Funding team. Andrew can be contacted at andrew.mcaulay@clarionsolicitors.com or on 0113 336 3334 or 07764 501252.

A new year, a new statement of costs. But why stop at that? A few intended changes to Costs Management too

Sue FoxLeave a comment

The CPR committee have been hard at work again coming up with solutions to the problems that have been encountered by the legal profession since the Jackson reforms nearly 6 years ago.  Following the scratching of many heads, a few of those creases have been ironed out and the following proposals have been made:

Statements of costs

A voluntary 2 year pilot scheme for the new statement of costs will be implemented, starting from 1 April 2019.

The current proposals are for two new forms of costs statements, namely N260A and N260B which may be used for summary assessment. These new forms will  include a VAT declaration and the forms will now include the signature of a legal representative, which is in line with the rules, as opposed to a company partner. The Form N260A will cross refer to the document schedule in the summary. No model forms are available yet.

Master Howarth has suggested that the precedent Q, the document that identifies whether there has been an under or overspend in a phase of a budget, is incorporated into the statement of costs. This will create transparency at the summary assessment stage regarding the amount incurred in comparison to the approved budget – supporting the need for a well drafted budget.

The committee is to give consideration to lower value cases and the relevance of statements of costs for those cases where there will never be a summary assessment, as there was concern regarding the wasted costs incurred in those instances.

Costs management

The precedent H costs budget will remain the same, but there will be some adjustments to the guidance notes to align costs budgeting with the new electronic bill approach.

There has been many a debate regarding what date the incurred costs should be included up to in the budget and there is tension in the wording of the rules in that regard. The committee have recognised this and have debated the very same problem. They have understood that differing practices appear to be in place and that overall there is value in a consistent approach. It has been advised that this issue should be resolved as part of a future review of the practice direction.

There will be some adjustments to the precedent R, however that is the only guidance that has been provided at this stage, so the amendments remain unknown for the time being.

Sue Fox is a Senior Associate and the Head of Costs Management in the Costs and Litigation Funding Department at Clarion Solicitors. You can contact her at sue.fox@clarionsolicitors.com and 0113 336 3389, or the Clarion Costs Team on 0113 246 0622.

 

Voluntary capped costs pilot scheme in the Business Courts

Sue FoxLeave a comment

Following on from my blog and newsletter (see below) over a year and half ago, it has now been announced that the capped costs pilot scheme will go live in January 2019 to coincide with the launch of the disclosure pilot scheme. The capped costs pilot scheme will apply to the Business and Property Courts in Leeds and Manchester (Chancery, Circuit Commercial and the Technology and Construction Court) and the London Circuit Commercial Court.

It is a voluntary scheme that will last for 2 years, with costs capped at £80,000.00.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Blog published 20.06.17

Fixed Recoverable Costs – the pilot scheme

Following on from my newsletter below, the Civil Procedure Rule Committee meeting notes have been published today. Last month I explained how Jackson LJ had suggested how ‘capped fixed costs’ would work. The meeting notes have now confirmed how the pilot scheme will work, explaining that costs for preaction would be capped at £10,000, for particulars of claim at £7,000 and for defence and counterclaims at £7,000.

Many thanks to John Hyde of the Law Society Gazette who has reported that “Parties can claim up to £6,000 for a reply and defence to the counterclaims, £6,000 for the case management conference, £6,000 for disclosure and £8,000 for witness statements. Expert reports are capped at £10,000, with the trial and judgment costs limited to £20,000.

The working group dedicated to the pilot scheme proposes an overall cap of £80,000 rather than setting an actual fixed amount at this stage.

The proposal, backed in principle by the committee, is to run the pilot in certain specialist civil courts: the London Mercantile Court and three courts in each of the Manchester District Registry and Leeds District Registry. Any cases where the trial will go beyond two days, or where the value is more than £250,000, are excluded”.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Clarion May 2017 Newsletter

Fixed Recoverable Costs. A taster of how the pilot scheme may work.

The judiciary have released an outline regarding how the fixed recoverable costs regime may work. Jackson LJ attended a costs seminar in Birmingham back in March 2017, which focused on mercantile and business litigation. At that seminar both Jackson LJ and HHJ Waksman outlined their proposals for the fixed costs pilot scheme, those proposals being subject to the approval of the Civil Procedure Rules Committee. The details of their proposals were as follows:

The pilot scheme will run in the London Mercantile court, and Manchester and Leeds specialist courts.

  • It is likely that the pilot will commence in October 2017 and will last for two years.
  • The pilot scheme is optional.
  • There will be a separate fixed costs list.
  • The pilot can be joined at certain stages:
    • The pre-action stage
    • No later than 14 days after service of the defence
    • At the case management conference (CMC)
    • Claimants can commence proceedings in the fixed costs list.

The Defendant has an absolute right to object to this, and if so then the proceedings would be removed from the fixed cost list.

  • The CMC will be the last opportunity to join the pilot.
  • Parties will not be able to withdraw from the pilot, apart from the Defendant if the Claimant issues in the pilot scheme (see above).
  • There will be a shortened process with strict case management .

The pilot is currently a ‘work in progress’, however it is envisaged that these proposals will be making their way to the Civil Procedure Rules Committee in June 2017, so these could be public by July 2017. It is currently predicted that:

  • Parties will be required to file their “core documents” (the documents that are relevant to the issues in the claim) with their statements of case, i.e. the particulars of claim, defence, reply and defence to counterclaim.
  • There will be no need for further disclosure, unless parties can justify this at the CMC.
  • If further disclosure is required, parties will need to apply for the same before the CMC. If the parties cannot agree, an order will be made.
  • At the CMC, the judge will suggest Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), including Early Neutral Evaluation (ENE).
  • The CMC will be the only interim hearing, this will include setting the trial timetable.
  • Consideration is being given to limiting the number of witnesses, the thoughts are that there will be one factual witness on each side.
  • Costs budgeting will not be required and there will be no pre-trial review.
  • The trial length will be up to two days (excluding judicial reading)
  • Cross-examination will be “very strictly controlled”.
  • An early hearing date will be guaranteed.
  • Judgments will be produced within a short period of time.
  • Pilot participants can expect “active and proactive” case management.
  • Costs will be summarily assessed at the end of trial.

The above proposals were made in March 2017, however since then there have been further proposals, as follows:

  • The pilot will only relate to claims that are less than £250,000.
  • The pilot will only relate to claims where the trial is no more than 2 days.
  • The pilot will only relate to non-complex matters.
  • The maximum costs that will be allowed will be £80,000. The pilot scheme will be similar to the IPEC costs regime. There will be caps for phases of litigation and those phases will be the same as the phases used in costs budgets.
  • Parties can only leave the scheme under exceptional circumstances, examples of those circumstances are; allegations of fraud, if the matter subsequently is listed for a 3 day trial.
  • Judgment will be handed down within 6 weeks.
  • The proposed ‘grid’ is not yet available and it is likely that this will not be available until the practice directions are published, so it may make its way into any July update to the rules. The main benefits of the pilot scheme are that claims will be resolved speedily and parties will be more aware of their potential costs exposure.
  • We will continue to provide updates regarding fixed costs, as well as all costs related law.

Sue Fox is a Senior Associate and the Head of Costs Management in the Costs and Litigation Funding Department at Clarion Solicitors. You can contact her at sue.fox@clarionsolicitors.com and 0113 336 3389, or the Clarion Costs Team on 0113 246 0622.