The Supreme Court Costs Office

No.35 of 2004

Botham and Lamb v Imran Khan
12 November 2004
Mr Justice Richards (Sitting without Assessors)

This was a costs case which strangely went straight to a High Court Judge, rather than coming through the Costs Office, and related to litigation which had been concluded in 1996.

The issue was whether, in the light of the long time gap between the end of the proceedings, and the proposed reactivation of the detailed assessment proceedings, they should be allowed to proceed. The paying party submitted that they should not be, primarily on the ground of delay in commencing the proceedings, but also for alleged defects in the bill of costs sought to be assessed.

As is clear from the judgment the decision of the Judge to allow the detailed assessment to proceed is heavily fact dependent. In the light of those facts, which are dealt with in detail in the judgment, the Judge deplored the fact that it was sought to reactivate the proceedings after such a long delay, but nevertheless felt that there was no justification, on the facts or on the authorities, for preventing the defendant from proceeding with the detailed assessment proceedings, though he expressed the very strong hope that those proceedings would not in fact have to proceed to a full detailed assessment. The paying party also had an outstanding bill against the receiving party, and it was felt that by no means certain that the result of contested detailed assessment proceedings would result in a net payment one way or the other.