Indemnity costs

The basic rule was that a successful party would be entitled to his costs on the standard basis. The discretion was a wide one to be determined in the light of all the circumstances of the case. To award costs against an unsuccessful party on an indemnity scale was a departure from the norm. There therefore had to be something, whether it was the conduct of the claimant or the circumstances of the case, which took the case outside the norm. It was not necessary that the claimant should be guilty of dishonesty or moral blame. Unreasonableness in the conduct of proceedings and the raising of particular allegations or in the manner of raising them might suffice. So might the pursuit of a speculative claim involving a high risk of failure, or the making of allegations of dishonesty that turned out to be misconceived, or the conduct of an extensive publicity campaign designed to drive the party to settlement. The making of a grossly exaggerated claim might