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I think the focus on hourly rates is perhaps missing what struck me as the most blatant issue, i.e. that the initial schedules of costs were vastly inflated compared to the bills that were produced.

According to the CofA judgment, in one case the time claimed was 20 hours in the initial schedule vs 6 in the bill. Routine letters and telephones calls went down from 96 to 69 and 46 down to 30 respectively, whilst the total reduced from £11k to £6k.

There were 14 cases, and similar issues were said to be present in the others.

So it's not just, or even mainly an issue of hourly rates. The time they were claiming initially was massively increased with no good reason ever produced to explain that.