Costs

The Queen’s Bench Division allowed an appeal by the successful claimants against a costs decision whereby the costs judge held that the changed funding arrangements were not reasonable on the basis that the litigation friends had agreed to the hanged funding arrangements without having been told that the consequence would be the “loss” of a 10% uplift. The court held that where the issue had come into the arena in a costs assessment exercise if it ever did, in all but the most exceptional cases a court could decide if the failure to mention the 10% uplift would have made any difference by applying the test of the reasonable person standing in the shoes of the individual