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To DDJ Anonymous,
I think this report is a bit misleading, and I don’t think you should lose too much sleep. From what I can see, the judgment doesn’t change anything. It merely emphasises that the court cannot formally “approve” incurred costs, and can only record comments about them. It doesn’t suggest that the court has power to order a reduction, or that the court should embark on an interim assessment of any sort. The court’s powers go no further than recording either that incurred costs appear reasonable and proportionate; or that they appear disproportionate. The Judgment was made not in the context of the cost management process, but in the context of an application for security for costs. This naturally involved taking a view as to the amount the applicant might realistically recover at the end of the case, which in turn involved considering the parties’ respective costs budgets (which had in fact both been agreed at the cost management stage).
By Paul Hawkins, cost draftsman.