The judges looked at whether the costs regime set in place by the Access to Justice Act 1999 complied with the European Court of Human Rights  in the context of a hard fought noise nuisance case which lasted over 11 days at trial followed by two appeals. The value of the nuisance, without an injunction was £74,000. The total costs of over £1.1m including success fees and ATE premiums were circa £670k. The amount of costs incurred was not a subject of criticism, but rather the result of  hard fought litigation over 11 days in Court followed by two appeals.

Compatible

The question at the heart of the appeal was whether the system of conditional fee ggreements and after the event Insurance in force from 2000 to 2013 were compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.  It was decided by a majority that the access to justice arrangements (and particularly the secondary legislation under which it operated) was compatible. Lords Neuberger and Dyson held that, by reference to the generality of cases, the access to justice arrangements was justified by the need to widen access to justice following the withdrawal of legal aid, was made following wide consultation and fell within the wide area of discretionary judgment of legislature and rule makers. There was, it was said, no perfect solution to the problem of how best to enhance access to justice.

Legitimate expectation

Lords Neuberger and Dyson also accepted the Bar Council’s submission that clients and their lawyers had a legitimate expectation that the Court would not (at least with reasonable notice) decide against recoverability where the court had previously allowed recovery of the costs and ATE premiums, noting that such a decision would impact on many thousands of pre-April 2013 cases and mesothelioma, insolvency and publication/privacy cases. Welcoming the judgment, Greg Cox of Colemans-ctts, who appeared in the case,  said: 'I am delighted that the cloud of uncertainty which had hung over litigants and their representatives since July 2014 has now lifted. The majority of the Court has given a clear judgment which reinforces the rights of litigants and their lawyers and should avoid the potential for large scale satellite litigation.'