
Ageing rockers’ ailments – can nothing be kept secret anymore?
The Rolling Stones were apparently “deeply upset” – as anyone would be – after leaked court documents last year revealed confidential medical information on band members. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, are, it has now been revealed, mortal and subject to the same ravages of age as the rest of us.

The lessons of the Excalibur ruling
The judgment in Excalibur Ventures v Keystone et al will give third-party litigation funders a number of reasons to consider how they structure and monitor their funding activities.

Busting the budget: applications to dis-apply the costs budgeting regime
Lucy McCormick of Henderson Chambers discusses the as-yet little used discretion in the CPR to dis-apply costs budgeting, and explains how she was able to make a successful application in a case involving a litigant-in-person.

Are courts deaf to success fee arguments in noise-induced hearing loss claims?
Roberto Carassale, head of costs at Blackburn firm Joseph Frasier, considers whether noise-induced hearing loss claims are disease claims for the purposes of the success fee provisions in CPR 45.34.

Part 36 and the new protocols
On 31 July, amendments to part 36 offers began to take effect, and John Spencer and John McQuater have examined the new protocols in relation to their interaction with part 36, and how its incentives to operate through the protocols, and in a fixed costs regime.