Costs

A family run poultry business was pushed into administration because the impact of Covid-19 meant it could no longer afford the legal fees for defending a £1.6m claim and running a counterclaim.

A claimant has lost all of his remaining entitlement to costs because of misconduct during the assessment process. The costs judge took an even stricter approach than the Court of Appeal in Gempride.

A defendant who lives in the USA and is being sued for legal fees did not waive the requirement for personal service for examination as a judgment debtor, the High Court has held.

The Senior Costs Judge has approved a £1.5m brief fee for a leading QC who worked on a “titanic” commercial dispute almost exclusively for nine months.

The coronavirus crisis “should not be part of the debate” on the introduction of fixed costs for clinical negligence cases, the new president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has said.

The question of whether underspending on a phase is a good reason to depart from a budget has come under the spotlight again after a costs judge ruled that it was not.

The starting point in the Competition Appeal Tribunal is that no order for costs should be made against an unsuccessful regulator acting purely in its regulatory capacity, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

The Supreme Court has called on the Civil Procedure Rules Committee to review the issue of whether disbursements should be payable separately in fixed-cost personal injury cases.