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Costs under review: made to measure

09 June 2023 / Julian Chamberlayne , Louise Morgan
Issue: 8028 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Costs
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The Civil Justice Council has handed down a wide range of recommendations on costs budgeting, guidelines hourly rates & beyond: Julian Chamberlayne & Louise Morgan hail the arrival of a more bespoke approach
  • The final report of the Civil Justice Council on costs recognised that guideline hourly rates (GHRs) require improvement.
  • A number of recommendations reflected the finding that cost budgeting needs to be more bespoke.

The Civil Justice Council (CJC) has now published its ‘Costs Review—Final Report’, following a ‘strategic and holistic review’ of costs by a working group. Costs budgeting, guideline hourly rates (GHRs), costs under pre-action protocols, digitisation of the justice system, and the extension of fixed recoverable costs (FRC) were all considered. The consultation comprised a conference and written submissions from stakeholders, with the consultation reopening to consider the Court of Appeal judgment in Belsner v CAM Legal Services Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1387.

This report is now in the hands of the Master of the Rolls to decide

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