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England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions >> King v Telegraph Group Ltd [2004] EWHC 90030 (Costs) (18 May 2004) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2004/90030.html Cite as: [2004] EWHC 90030 (Costs) |
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No.13 of 2004
King v Telegraph Group Ltd
18 May 2004
Court of Appeal - Brooke, Jonathan Parker and Maurice Kay LJJ
This was an appeal against the refusal of a highly experienced defamation Judge at first instance to strike out a claimants action which was pending for trial against the defendant on a number of grounds, some of them of a technical defamation nature, but principally on the basis that the defendants were at a lamentable disadvantage, in that they were facing a claimant whose case was being financed by a CFA, but without any ATE insurance cover, so that if the defendants were to win their case the prospects of their recovering any costs were remote. The defendants also contended that there was clear evidence that the claimant’s solicitors were running the case in an extravagant fashion in order to force the defendants into a settlement.
Lord Justice Brooke, who gave the only judgment, was very critical of the claimant’s solicitors conduct, and laid down some very stringent guidelines to be followed in future defamation cases, to ensure that an appropriate costs cap should be imposed at a comparatively early stage in the litigation, in order to control costs in situations such as the one before the court.
His comments would appear to be of general effect, though he was of course concerned only with the facts of the case before him, and on those facts refused to strike out the action, or indeed to indicate the courts view that certain costs were excessive and disproportionate.
