Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School and director of the Knowledge Hub at Frenkel Topping Group, examines the fallout from Prince Harry’s failed litigation against the Daily Mail.
Judicial comments that budgets fall away when indemnity costs are awarded were obiter, he notes. One leading appeal apparently proceeded without argument on that point. ‘I sense an important argument is in the making.’
Elsewhere, Regan reports an ‘astonishing’ £2m brief fee for a four-day appeal and a consultation on higher guideline rates for complex commercial work and hourly rates for counsel.
He also considers Mrs Justice Joanna Smith’s refusal to ‘salami slice’ indemnity costs in lottery litigation, alongside judicial appointments and a litigant’s attempt to issue a claim form running to a total of 583 pages.
