Courts have “unfettered discretion” to order costs budgets, says High Court
The courts have “unfettered discretion” to order costs budgets, whatever the size of the damages at stake, Mr Justice Coulson has said, despite arguments to the contrary based on the wording in the...
View ArticleBudgeting has “forced costs up”, LSLA says
Budgeting has “forced costs up and will continue to do so”, John Bramhall, president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association, has said. His comments came as 85% of litigators predicted that...
View ArticleHigh Court sanctions claimant for failing to update budget
A claimant’s failure to update his budget in advance of an unplanned preliminary hearing has led a High Court judge to rule that “every assumption” would be made against him in assessing the costs. The...
View ArticleHunt goes on for costs budgeting case to reach Court of Appeal after Redfern...
Hopes that the Court of Appeal would get its teeth into costs management have been dashed for the time being after the case that was destined to go there was successfully mediated. Litigation Futures...
View ArticleJackson carrying out costs budgeting ‘research’ before major speech
Lord Justice Jackson has been carrying out ‘research’ into the operation of costs budgeting in advance of a lecture next month, the Judicial Office has confirmed. The post Jackson carrying out costs...
View ArticleJudge asks: Where are all the applications to vary budgets?
A leading judge has expressed his “deep unease about the desert of applications” to vary costs budgets – with practitioners responding that they are positively avoiding doing so. The post Judge asks:...
View ArticleMR questions Jackson’s call to give courts costs management ‘opt-out’
The Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, yesterday expressed misgivings over a recommendation from Lord Justice Jackson that the court should not seek to manage costs “if it lacks resources to do so...
View ArticleBudget-busting solicitors ploughing ahead without court approval
Commercial litigators are busting their budgets without seeking court approval to revise them upwards, new research has shown. Even though every solicitor surveyed monitored the costs they incurred,...
View ArticleHigh Court abandons cost budgeting for clinical negligence claims to clear...
Costs budgeting will not be applied to High Court clinical negligence cases listed for costs hearings between October 2015 and January 2016 in an attempt to clear the backlog, it has emerged. The post...
View ArticleRule committee sets shorter deadlines for filing costs budgets
Lawyers will be set much shorter deadlines to file their costs budgets under a draft rule agreed by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee. The committee reversed an earlier decision to scrap costs capping...
View ArticleHigh Court rejects Clifford’s attempt to slash costs through “inadequate”...
The High Court has rejected jailed publicist Max Clifford's attempt to limit its costs to only £5,000 in a privacy claim by making an “inadequate” Calderbank offer. Deputy Judge Spearman said an...
View ArticleResearch reveals overspend in 89% of cases with costs budgets
Lawyers are overspending in 89% of High Court and county court cases where costs management orders are made, research has indicated. A survey by Just Costs solicitors found "a clear failure to comply...
View ArticleMedia litigators unhappy with procedure and costs budgeting
Lawyers and other users of the new media and communications list are unhappy with how the Civil Procedure Rules apply to the field, and particularly costs budgeting, according to the outcome of a...
View ArticleMaster calls on rules committee to solve riddle of the costs of budgeting
A High Court Master has called on the Civil Procedure Rules Committee to resolve the “tension” between the need to “spell out in the eventual bill” the costs of costs budgeting and to include them in...
View ArticleWarby: New defamation regime risks “front-loading of costs”
The new regime created by the Defamation Act 2013, and the prevalence of early judicial decisions, could lead to “front-loading of costs”, the judge in charge of the media and communications list has...
View Article