Costs

Receiver appointed on application of plaintiff - remuneration assessed by taxing officer - remuneration not costs so no fee for assessment payableMirror Group Newspapers Plc v Maxwell and others: ChD (Ferris J): 22 May 2000

M died suddenly in November 1991.

On the application of the plaintiff, which believed itself to be a substantial creditor of M at the time of his death, receivers were appointed to M's estate in December 1991.

In response to concerns at the level of the receivers' remuneration relative to the value of the assets recovered, Ferris J ordered in 1997 that their remuneration be assessed by a taxing officer pursuant to RSC Ord.30, r.3(2)(b).

In 1999 the chief taxing master determined, among other things, that a fee of 7% of the total remuneration was payable to the Lord Chancellor's Department in respect of the assessment of costs in the Chancery Division under item 29(d) of the Schedule to the Supreme Court Fees Order 1980.

The receivers appealed.Marcia Shekerdemian (instructed by Denton Wilde Sapte) for the receivers.

The Lord Chancellor's Department did not appear and was not represented.Held, allowing the appeal, that the remuneration of a court-appointed receiver was not of the character of costs in litigation, since the receiver was typically an officer of the court appointed to get in or protect property which was in jeopardy as a result of a dispute between parties to the litigation, who was bound to obey the directions of the court and not act on the instructions of one of the parties; that until 1992 remuneration of a receiver had been fixed by a Chancery master, though it had never been suggested that in so doing the master was 'assessing costs in the Chancery Division;' that the amendment to Ord.30, r.3 in 1992, whereby the remuneration of a receiver was also to be assessable by a taxing officer, could not change the character of a receiver's remuneration from something which was not 'costs' into something which constituted a form of costs; and that, since receivers could also be appointed in the Queen's Bench Division, it could not have been envisaged that a fee under item 29(d) would be payable where assessment under Ord.

30, r.3(2)(b) was ordered in the Chancery Division but not in the Queen's Bench Division.