Recent cases illustrate the importance of advising clients about the risk factors around costs recovery, as David Cooper explains
Success can be a relative term in litigation, and that applies to how costs are awarded at the end of a case. A slew of recent cases shows how clients who won their claims overall, but took hits along the way, can end up being more out of pocket than they might have expected, as judges use their considerable discretion to modify the general rule that costs follow the event.
Case law
Indeed, in MacInnes v Gross [2017] EWHC 127 (QB), Mr Justice Coulson had to remind the parties that “orders for costs have never been regarded as compensating the payee for the actual costs that he has paid out. On the contrary, unless the payee has an order in his favour for indemnity costs, he will never recover the actual costs that he has incurred”.
In Harlequin Property (SVG) Ltd v Wilkins Kennedy [2016] EWHC 3233 (TCC), [2017] All ER
