The Imitation Game

QUOCS (or QOCS as some term it) is one of the more sensible aspects of the LASPO 2012 reforms: in return for the abolition of recoverable success fees and ATE premiums, the insurance industry and other compensating bodies were made subject to a regime of one way costs shifting, which was broadly fair and ensured access to justice for injured people.

This is not to say that the scheme is not without its rough edges: there are still quite a number of points, which fall to be worked out.

Earlier this year I wrote about one of them, namely to what extent in a multi-party action successful defendants could recover their costs from any pot of damages that a claimant won against an unsuccessful defendant.

The article is here:   http://costsbarrister.co.uk/uncategorized/quocs-and-nihl-claims/.

Rather sooner that I expected, the arguments I formulated have found favour with the County Court bench and have been accepted in this case:  Bowman v Norfran Aluminium HH Judge Freedman County Court at Newcastle 11th August 2017 Approved judgment.

I am grateful to Caroline Cousins of A and M Bacon, for kindly forwarding me a copy of the judgment and acknowledging that the article on this blog played some useful role in the arguments put forward successfully on the part of the claimant.

I do not yet know if there will be an appeal from this judgment. There are a number of potentially very good arguments on the part of a defendant in this situation, which do not feature in the judgment and may or may not have been raised in oral argument.

The point is now starting to gather traction: I am arguing it next month in another case, and so yet another area of satellite litigation is launched.

4 thoughts on “The Imitation Game

  1. The Second Defendant has not sought permission to appeal the judgment in Bowman.
    Best of luck with your case.

  2. I will be interested to know the outcome of your case as I am arguing the same point on behalf of the defendant.

    1. There seems to be a slew of these applications at the moment. I can only assume that the claimants in the cases have no ATE insurance, as otherwise I would have thought the obvious course is a non-party costs application against the ATE insurer.

      1. The Claimant had ATE insurance in Bowman. But if the policies were asked to pay out for such claims it would lead to an increase in the policy cost, as I understand they are not book risked on this basis, and most likely more uninsured Claimants or reduced access to justice.

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