CASEWATCH: 5 DECISIONS ON CIVIL PROCEDURE / COSTS HANDED DOWN IN MAY 2021

1.      Ward v Savill [2021] EWCA Civ 1378: The Court of Appeal considered the circumstances in which a judgment could be said to be a judgment in rem binding the whole world. It concluded that the appellants could not rely upon declarations made in earlier proceedings to which the respondent had not been a party as it was not a judgment in rem.

 2.      Tribe v Elborne Mitchell LLP [2021] EWHC 1252 (Ch): Absent prejudice a party’s failure to serve a costs schedule more than 24 hours before the hearing as provided in paras 9.5 – 9.6 of CPR PD44 did not warrant a reduction in its recoverable costs. The guidance given by Neuberger J (as he then was) in MacDonald v Taree Holdings [2001] 1 Costs L.R. 147 was followed.

 3.      Gertner, Re [2021] EWHC 1404: It was appropriate to make a costs order against a non-party which had been responsible for funding a party's participation in litigation. The funding agreement demonstrated that the non-party had held a massive degree of control over the litigation, and in those circumstances it was appropriate to make a third party costs order without limiting the costs to those which had actually been paid by the non-party.

 4.      Beattie Passive Norse Ltd v Canham Consulting Ltd [2021] EWHC 1414: Claimants who had been awarded ￡2000 in a professional negligence claim which they had pleaded at ￡3.7 million were ordered to pay the defendant's costs on an indemnity basis. The costs were assessed from the date on which the claimants had given a factually inaccurate answer in a request for information; from that date onwards, they had been advancing a plainly untruthful case on a major and central point in the litigation, which must have been known to their directors.

 5.      Serbian Orthodox Church - Serbian Patriarchy v Kesar & Co [2021] EWHC 1205: Service of a notice of commencement of costs assessment to an email address which had not been agreed by the receiving party, but which had immediately and automatically been forwarded to the correct address, was not valid service under CPR PD 6A. However, there was a good reason to make an order under r.6.27 that sufficient steps had been taken to effect good service.