A solicitor advocate has been hit with almost £50,000 in indemnity costs after challenging almost every cost on a bill of almost 1,400 items during detailed costs assessment.
Robin Makin was already facing paying costs on the indemnity basis to the Transcription Agency after launching failed data protection and GDPR proceedings against it. Yesterday Deputy Costs Judge Lightman also ordered Makin - of Liverpool Legal - to pay the agency £46,541.40 for the costs of a four-day detailed assessment at the Senior Courts Cost Office in London.
Lightman recorded how the hearing, which had initially been listed for just two days, had been extended by Makin’s conduct. 'I have had to go through a bill of nearly 1,400 items and just about every single point has been challenged by the claimant', Lightman said.
The points of dispute put forward by Makin had not suggested alternative figures to the ones he challenged, the judge said. 'I have indulged him in so far as I can to allow him to look at this on a time basis. I have had to go through every one of these points.'
The judge said Makin 'has acted in these detailed assessment proceedings in a manner not dissimilar to the way he acted in the main proceedings. This is, to my mind, above the norm. This is not the way a detailed assessment hearing should have progressed. I have no doubt in saying costs should be on an indemnity basis.'
However Lightman ruled that the costs being claimed by the defendant, which had instructed international firm Kennedys Law, should be reduced from the £54,347.65 originally claimed, which he said was ‘too high’.
Concluding the case, Lightman said it was ‘the highest figure’ he had ever given after a detailed assessment and was the first time one he had sat on as a judge had run to four days.
The bill for the main proceedings has still to be calculated.
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