The Court has the power to “strike out” (i.e. dismiss) all or part of a party’s statement of case. The Court may make an order for strike out in circumstances where a party is pursuing or defending a case that has no reasonable basis or to prevent proceedings for abuse of process.
An application for strike out can also be used in the context of witness statements and expert reports. For example, the Court may decide to strike out certain paragraphs of an expert report if they are irrelevant or go beyond the scope of the expert’s permitted topic.
We’re produced an article further exploring strike out for more information.
When the Court is awarding costs on the indemnity basis, there is no requirement for the costs to be proportionate. The onus is therefore on the paying party to show that the costs claimed are unreasonable. This normally results in a much higher recovery for the receiving party, say 85%-90%.
Costs will be awarded on an indemnity basis in certain circumstances, for example, if a party has failed to better a Part 36 offer and/ or their conduct has been particularly unreasonable.
We’re produced an article on indemntiy basis for more information.
The default position is that costs will be awarded on a standard basis. This is where the court will only allow costs which are:-
a) Reasonable in amount; and
b) Reasonably incurred; and
c) Proportionate
For explanations of further keywords & phrases used in the context of commercial disputes we’ve produced a Legal Jargon Buster.
Detailed assessment of costs tends to take place at the end of a case where the trial is more than 1 day. The party who is entitled to recover their costs will be required to prepared a detailed bill of costs and share this with the paying party. The paying party then has an opportunity to serve “points of dispute” where they can challenge the costs included within the bill of costs.
For explanations of further keywords & phrases used in the context of commercial disputes we’ve produced a Legal Jargon Buster.
Summary assessment of costs normally takes place at the end of an interim hearing or a trial which is less than 1 day. The parties will have filed a statement of costs which is a concise summary of the costs they have incurred for that hearing or the whole proceedings. The Court has a wide discretion and often will take a very broad brush approach on costs.
For explanations of further keywords & phrases used in the context of commercial disputes we’ve produced a Legal Jargon Buster.
A cost budget in form Precedent H is a document used by the Court to manage the costs of parties during proceedings. For multi track cases, each party will have to file a cost budget which summarises (i) their costs incurred to date and (ii) their estimated costs to trial. If the claim is for more than £50,000 then the Precedent H will need to be more detailed than if the claim is for a lesser amount.
For explanations of further keywords & phrases used in the context of commercial disputes we’ve produced a Legal Jargon Buster.
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