Jackson reforms

Both claimant and defendant solicitors expressed themselves dissatisfied with the Ministry of Justice’s conclusion that the part 2 LASPO reforms have largely achieved their goals.

Part 2 of LASPO has “on balance” succeeded in the government’s aims of reducing the cost of litigation, the Ministry of Justice declared today – but DBA reform is on the agenda.

A pilot scheme introducing capped costs of £80,000 for cases worth up to £250,000 – as recommended by Sir Rupert Jackson last year – is set to be introduced next month.

The government is to abolish the recoverability of success fees in defamation cases – but retain it for after-the-event insurance premiums, it announced yesterday.

Proportionality should be addressed at the beginning of an assessment, and not the end, because it should inform the reasonableness of the costs, a costs judge has suggested.

A claimant who submitted a budget that did not include figures for trial preparation or trial has won relief from a decision that limited the entire budget to court fees only – but only for those parts of the budget that were completed.

It is “unacceptable” that there is still no guidance on the proportionality test more than five years after it came into force, a leading costs silk has argued. Nick Bacon QC was speaking following the latest application of the test, which saw a circuit judge reduce assessed costs of £116,000 to £75,000.

An unsuccessful defendant in a road traffic claim for financial losses who made an unsuccessful counterclaim for personal injury was entitled to the protection of qualified one-way costs shifting for the whole case, a circuit judge has ruled.