A princely costs battle, an astonishing brief fee & no appetite for salami slicing: Dominic Regan delivers his latest dispatch
What is the relevance of a court-approved budget where a party is awarded indemnity costs? This issue has arisen in the context of the failed Prince Harry action where the gulf between the budget of the winning Daily Mail and what it is now seeking is about £20m.
As I explained in my October column (‘The insider’, NLJ, 9 October 2026, p6), retired costs judge Colin Campbell has flagged up the fact that judicial comments that the budget would be disregarded were obiter. Lord Justice Coulson in Lejonvarn v Burgess and another [2020] EWCA Civ 114 opined at the end of his judgment that the budget fell away where, as in that case, indemnity costs were awarded. I have just caught up with Rupert Cohen of Landmark Chambers who won the appeal in Burgess. He assures me that this was not an issue
