The final instalment of the Jackson jigsaw will be delivered with a drastic extension of fixed costs. It was a decade ago that his interlocking measures were revealed. Sir Rupert set himself the challenge of devising a regime where justice could be delivered at proportionate, reasonable cost.
To that end he decided that a fixed costs regime should apply to lower value cases. While such costs have been introduced in personal injury, mainstream litigation has been left untouched. That is going to change. In July 2017 recommendations were made by Sir Rupert which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) only responded to last year. Matters worth between £25,000 and £100,000 would have costs determined by reference to a matrix. Out will go costs management at the start of an action and detailed assessment would fall away at the end. Cases would be allocated to one of three bands, each one having a scale of costs that would understandably increase as the matter progressed.
