Kerry Underwood examines qualified one-way costs shifting
- Qualified one-way costs shifting only applies to personal injury work.
- Under QOCS a losing personal injury claimant does not have to pay costs, but a winning claimant recovers costs as usual from the defendant, hence the “one way”.
Qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS) was introduced as part of the Jackson Reforms in April 2013 and the relevant rules are CPR 44.12 (set-off) and 44.13 to 44.17 (QOCS).
QOCS applies only to personal injury work, but it applies to all such work whatever its value and whatever type of work and thus for example a clinical negligence case of £2m is covered by QOCS.
Under QOCS a losing personal injury claimant does not have to pay costs, but a winning claimant recovers costs as usual from the defendant, hence the “one way”.
Rationale
The rationale was that such a scheme would make after-the-event (ATE) insurance unnecessary. The collective benefit to defendants—generally insurance companies in such cases in reality—is that recoverability of ATE insurance premiums, and success fees, was
