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The agreement to meet at the offices of London-based libel specialist firm Carter-Ruck emerged last week.
Costs in libel cases involving CFAs came in for criticism in the recent Court of Appeal case Musa King v Telegraph Group. Lord Justice Brooke ruled that cost-capping orders including any uplift should be introduced in libel cases involving CFAs, where the claimant is not backed by after-the-event insurance.
He said the pressure on defendant newspapers to settle cases because they knew they would not recover their costs even if they won would have a ‘chilling effect’ on their freedom of expression (see [2004] Gazette, 20 May, 5).
Alasdair Pepper, a partner at Carter-Ruck, said: ‘We’ve arranged a meeting with the Fleet Street Lawyers Association (FSLA) with a view to discussing CFA schemes and to see if we can agree some success-fee levels for the schemes.’
He said the meeting – which will probably take place at the offices of Carter-Ruck in August – would be open to all members of the FSLA, which includes many newspapers’ in-house solicitors, and solicitors from broadcasters.
Justin Walford, legal adviser at Express Newspapers and a member of the FSLA, said: ‘We’re happy to have a meeting and listen to what Carter-Ruck have to say.’
He said: ‘Any proposal to make good a situation that is currently considered unsatisfactory would be helpful. It is not that there is any distortion in the law, but there is a pressure on the defendant to resolve matters at an early stage because of costs. Commercial pressures come to bear on matters that should be ruled by article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to freedom of expression.’
‘We accept that newspapers get things wrong, and that if they do so there should be justice for claimants. But the issue is whether – as they currently operate – CFAs amount to fairness and justice and take article 10 into account, or whether they distort it, and our view is the latter.’
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