Charlotte Bradley reviews the “new” test for enforcing LSC cost orders
The first reported court decision since the change of test to be applied when enforcing a costs order against the Legal Services Commission (LSC) has now been made, a decade since the change in regulations, and, ironically, at a time when the government is pushing ahead its plans to slash legal aid.
In her judgment in LSC v F, A & V [2011] EWHC 899 (QB), [2011] All ER (D) 95 (Apr) Sharpe J refused the LSC’s appeal against the costs judge’s decision to allow the respondents to enforce their costs orders totalling £495,000. This claim against the LSC arose from unusual High Court family proceedings.
The factual background
The respondents, F, A and V, were interveners in financial proceedings on divorce. F and V were sisters to the husband and A was the husband’s mother. All were Iranian. The wife (who had lived in the UK with the husband) asserted in the
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