Fixed costs: time to get ready

Fixed recoverable costs for most money claims of up to £100,000 are coming this October. Twice delayed to date, the Ministry of Justice has made it clear that this is finally it.

It is more than six years since Professor Dominic Regan met up with Sir Rupert Jackson for a confidential discussion about the concept and implementation of a wide-ranging fixed costs matrix. Sir Rupert published his detailed report that July and the blueprint has not changed much since then.

Nobody is better placed than Dominic to identify and discuss the many difficult issues which are inevitably going to arise:

• What cases are captured by the rules?
• When and how can one reasonably contend that a case be exempt?
• Which of the four tracks will a case fall into?
• Does an allegation of fundamental dishonesty warrant allocation to the top track?
• How is a claim to be valued?
• What is to stop the inflation of claims to evade the rules?
• Does the recording of time matter with the abrogation of the indemnity principle?
• Changing your retainer.
• Plugging the shortfall in costs recovery.
• The dilemma surrounding fees of counsel.