The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been ordered to pay £200,000 on account to global firm Dentons following last month's appeal over a prosecution for historical money laundering breaches. In Dentons UK and Middle East v SRA Ltd, three judges rejected the SRA's contention that no costs order should be made against it for discharging its responsibilities as a regulator.
Lord Justice Bean, Lord Justice Jeremy Baker and Lord Justice Zacaroli last month allowed an appeal by Dentons following which a newly constituted Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal will determine whether the firm's conduct in relation to a client taken on following a 2013 acquisition meets a threshold of 'sufficient seriousness'.
In a brief costs judgment today, the three judges concluded that the SRA should pay 65% of Dentons' costs in the appeal.The firm's costs schedules show it ran up a total of £793,679.60 in the hearings, nearly four and a half times higher than those incurred by the SRA.
The judges observed: 'The matter was no doubt of considerable importance to Dentons, but the question of assessment of costs payable between litigants is not whether it was resaonable to Dentons to choose to instruct such expensive solicitors and counsel, but whether it is reasonable for the resulting cost to be imposed on the SRA. Given the enormous amount of their costs for a matter that lasted a day in the High Court, and involved substantially a repeat of the same arguments at a hearing of less than two days in the Court of Appeal, a substantial discount is appropriate'.
Subject to detailed assessment if not agreed, the SRA must pay Dentons £515,891.74, with £200,000 due on account within 21 days. The SRA's own costs of the appeal proceedings come to £179,837.67.
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