Mariana Dam disaster: Fees dispute
A judge has partially struck out a defence lodged by class action specialist Pogust Goodhead (PG) in a battle over £3.1m in fees which litigation boutique Seladore Legal says it is owed under two retainers.
Master Pester said the retainers related to work Seladore carried out for PG in support of its landmark Mariana dam case.
Seladore, a central London practice, issued PGMBM with a final bill for almost £3.1m in April 2025. Only £886,000 has been paid, leaving over £2.2m outstanding.
The work began in May 2023. The first retainer related to a proposed claim by PG against the defendants in Mariana claim based on an equitable lien, because they were seeking to settle claims directly with the claimants.
The second retainer was general litigation support.
PG argued that the retainers, which were discounted conditional fee agreements (CFAs), were unenforceable because they breached section 58(4)(b) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (CLSA) by not stating the percentage uplift on success.
The law firm counterclaimed to recover the money it has already paid to Seladore.
Seladore applied for strike out and/or summary judgment of paragraphs in PG’s defence relating to the alleged breach of the CLSA.
The CFAs said that, in the event of success, PG would pay uplifted fee rates representing 170% of Seladore’s standard fee rates “subject to rounding”.
Master Pester said that “viewed purely as a matter of contractual construction”, the terms of the retainers were clear and, in his witness statement, PG partner Guy Robson “does not say that he or his firm did not understand or were confused as to what they were being charged”.
Noting that the retainers were entered into “between two commercial entities on a similar playing field”, the judge said: “There is force in Seladore’s description of PGMBM [PG’s formal company name] as being ‘about as far removed from the position of the little old lady’ as possible.”
Master Pester said the requirement in section 58 (4)(b) that the percentage uplift in the event of success should be specified was met – saying the uplifted fee rates would be 170% of Seladore’s standard rates was “functionally identical… to stating that the fees will be increased by 70% of the normal fees. To hold otherwise would be empty formalism”.
He went on to reject the argument that the phrase ‘subject to rounding’ made a difference to the outcome – because as a result the CFA did not state the precise percentage.
PG’s “own evidence” showed that it was able to “identify precisely the increase in terms of pounds and pence. “The effect of a 70% increase will always be to round up, as opposed to rounding down.”
Even if he was wrong on this, “it does not seem to me that there is any material breach of the legislation” because it amounted to 50p an hour, or £1,678.
Master Pester concluded that the CFAs “spelt out the position with sufficient clarity” so that PG “would have no doubt what it was required to pay”.
The judge ruled that Seladore’s application for a partial strike-out succeeded, and PG’s counterclaim fell away, but “there are still arguments as to the fees reasonably charged by Seladore more generally”.
Further, the question of whether ‘success’ was achieved as defined by the CFAs was a matter for trial.
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