Wills & Trusts Law Reports | December 2011 #115The appellant trustees sought permission to appeal from a costs order. An application had been issued in December 2006 pursuant to which the trustees sought sanction to pursue claims for (inter alia) breach of trust. Three related beneficiaries (Lorna, Fiona and Marcus) resisted the application as defendants, save in respect of a negligence claim against solicitors. In July 2008, Lindsay J declined to sanction any of the claims (save for the negligence claim) and made clear that the trustees had acted in an inappropriately partisan way. Directions were given for a costs hearing,...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | December 2011 #115The claimant had challenged the last will of the deceased dated 13 November 2006 (the deceased had died on 19 October 2008) on the bases of (1) lack of testamentary capacity, (2) want of knowledge and approval and (3) undue influence. The claimant failed on all those bases. The decision of Morgan J can be found at [2011] EWHC 1616 (Ch). On the issue of costs the claimant contended that there should be no order as to costs up to and including 26 September 2010 and thereafter that she should pay the defendant’s costs on the standard basis such liability not to be enforced without the...
Melanie Hart reviews the impact of the Trafigura case ‘Where the overall level of costs is disproportionate then each item of cost will only be recoverable if it passes the additional test of necessity.’ On 12 October 2011 the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment in Motto & ors v Ltd & anor (Rev 3) …
Continue reading "Costs: Get a grip – keeping a sense of proportion"
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Paul Jones discusses issues of proportonality ‘Issues such as proportionality, abandoned claims, costs of funding, success fees and ATE premiums form major elements in many costs disputes and it is helpful to have a current view of these issues.’ The costs dispute following the settlement of the group action against Trafigura, after the alleged illegal …
Continue reading "Costs: The return of Trafigura"
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Paul Jones focuses on the latest litigation arising from Part 36 ‘One of the ambiguities left by the wording of the current Part 36 is that it is somewhat unclear as to what the costs consequences might be of a Part 36 Offer which is made and then accepted before proceedings are commenced.’ When the …
Continue reading "Costs: When are proceedings not proceedings"
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Rani Mina considers the impact of the new Practice Direction on costs budgets ‘The new Practice Direction may increase the risks that lawyers face as, should the approved costs budget prove to be wide of the mark, they will not only have an unhappy client but could face a claim if the budget was prepared …
Continue reading "Costs: Cutting your cloth"
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Paul Jones discusses the prospects of appeal following a summary assessment of costs ‘A judge should consider the component parts of the claim for costs but he was not obliged to go through a box-ticking exercise in which he had to make a ruling on each and every one of the elements of the costs …
Continue reading "Costs: Summary execution"
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Dick Warner looks at recent case law on awards of costs following discontinuance of proceedings ‘The terms of r38.5 CPR were such that the discontinuance of the main action would not affect any proceedings relating to costs, but when considering an application under r38.6 CPR, the court would place weight on whether or not the …
Continue reading "Costs: Giving up gracefully"
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Paul Jones reviews a recent case that emphasises the discretion judges have when dealing with costs ‘Where a court considers that a party has acted unreasonably and, by virtue of that unreasonable conduct, has obtained a costs order on the standard basis rather than the more prescriptive fixed costs, the court can assess the costs …
Continue reading "Costs: A distinction without a difference"
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The implementation of the Jackson reforms, as announced by Kenneth Clarke on 20 March 2011, sees a return to the way litigation was funded 15 years ago, as Glenn Newberry finds out ‘For those who missed the CFA revolution: it’s gone, you’ve missed it. For those who’ve made their fortunes out of it, it seems …
Continue reading "Costs: A ‘claims culture’"
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