Costs—Case management—Regime

Court of Appeal, Civil Division, Lord Dyson MR, Richards & Elias LJJ, 27 November 2013

The Court of Appeal has set out guidance as to how the new approach to an application for relief from sanctions under CPR 3.9 should be applied in practice: the new more robust approach will mean that relief from sanctions should be granted more sparingly than previously.

Simon Brown QC and Richard Wilkinson (instructed by Atkins Thomson Solicitors) for the claimant. Nicholas Bacon QC and Roger Mallalieu (instructed by Simons Muirhead and Burton Solicitors) for the defendant.

The claimant was formerly the chief whip of the Conservative party. The defendant owned a newspaper which, in September 2012, reported that the claimant had abused police officers in an incident which became known as “plebgate”. In March 2013, the claimant issued proceedings against the defendant in defamation. The proceedings were subject to CPR PD51D Defamation Proceedings Costs Management Scheme, which provided