TEST CASES: two-day mediation leads to agreement

The 700 firms on The Accident Group's (TAG) panel will finally be paid for their work after a settlement was reached on their costs.

A two-day mediation on the TAG test cases was run last week by former senior Law Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, and barrister Jonathan Dingle of ADR Chambers UK.

The parties have agreed to apply a 25% discount to the agreed/assessed base costs in the bulk of the cases that have been held pending the outcome of the litigation.

They have also agreed that individual claimants will not be asked to pay the shortfall of their costs.

There are some 200,000 cases awaiting the outcome of the test cases.

It means that a hearing on recoverability, listed before Chief Master Hurst next week, will not take place.

However, two other key issues are still heading to court: the recoverability of the 310 payments made by firms to TAG subsidiary Accident Investigations, which Master Hurst last year decided were referral fees and therefore irrecoverable; and the level of recoverable premium, which Master Hurst slashed by around half.

A statement from the parties said these issues will be heard in the Court of Appeal in late April 'unless earlier agreement is reached'.

Stewart McCulloch, a partner in the Liverpool office of Mace & Jones, acted for the claimants in the mediation.

Describing it as a 'sensible compromise', he said there was 'a huge willingness on both sides to bring an end to the costs war'.

The defendants were represented by Rachel Bolt, a partner at City-based Beachcroft Wansbroughs, Rob Carter, a partner at Peterborough firm Carters, and Jason Rowley, a partner at London and Dartford firm Vizards Wyeth.

Ms Bolt said the mediation was 'a long couple of days', but added that the deal 'makes commercial sense all round'.

Neil Rose