No reduction in awarded costs for Rooney in alleged misconduct appeal

There will be no reduction in costs awarded to footballer’s wife Coleen Rooney in relation to a failed costs appeal in the ongoing ‘Wagatha Christie’ litigation, a judge has ruled. Fellow footballer’s wife Rebekah Vardy appealed against a costs judge who she argued had been wrong to decline to find that Rooney or her solicitors had conducted themselves improperly in relation to costs budgets.

The latest judgment in Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Rooney states that there was no dispute that costs for the appeal should be awarded on the standard basis and the assessment should be by way of a summary assessment.

Mr Justice Cavanagh said he had consulted with senior costs judge Jason Rowley before reaching his conclusions. Dismissing a claim for Rooney's awarded costs to be reduced, he said: ‘Whilst there can be circumstances in which it is appropriate to disallow some of a successful party’s costs because much of the hearing was taken up with a discrete point or points on which the party had been unsuccessful, this is not such a case.

‘The reality is that Ms Rooney was entirely successful at the appeal hearing. The two arguments referred to…only took up a small part of the argument, as is reflected in the fact that they were dealt with in five paragraphs of a 76-paragraph judgment.’

The judge refused a payment on account of costs as the ‘whole point’ of a summary assessment ‘is to ensure that the party in whose favour a costs award is made recovers its costs within a short time of the hearing to which the costs award relates. This means that there is no scope, and no need, for a payment on account.’

He added that it was 'appropriate' that acting senior costs judge Rowley conduct the summary assessment of the costs for the appeal rather than it be left for costs judge Whalan, who is hearing the continued detailed assessment of costs on an indemnity basis, in relation to Vardy's failed defamation claim, later this month.