Revealed: Stricken SSB avoided court fees by understating claims

Crisis-hit Sheffield firm SSB Law received multiple findings of an abuse of court process just months before administration, it has emerged.

A judgment from Leeds County Court handed down in July reveals that the firm under-estimated the value of cavity wall insulation claims, delayed paying the correct court fees and knowingly used an expert witness with questions over his independence.

District Judge Dawson was highly critical of SSB and its conduct but opted not to penalise the cavity wall claimants it was representing, allowing the cases to continue but with caveats and costs sanctions.

The fate of these claims is still unclear. The firm gave notice of its intention to appoint administrators last week and a buyer is being sought for its work in progress.

As at April this year, SSB said it was on record for 1,428 litigated claims. The July judgment was on the defendant’s application for abuse of process in relation to a handful of test cases out of 143 issued through the new Damage Claims Portal.

The court heard that SSB had declared the value for each claim was up to £10,000 and a court fee of £455 was therefore set. But amended claims forms filed several months later then estimated the claims to be worth significantly more: the four claims now ranged from £83,000 to £104,000. The court fees due were therefore significantly more than had originally been set, but none of these fees was paid with the amended forms.

The judge worked out that the average underpayment for each case was £4,179, meaning the firm should have paid almost £600,000 in total to issue the claims. The court heard there was at least a four-month delay in paying the correct fees.

The judge added: ‘The abuse of process perpetuated by the claimants in not paying the proper court fee at the issue of each of the four claims before me by mis-stating the expected value of the claim, is very significantly increased in terms of seriousness given the consequence that the appropriate court fee was not tendered at the time of the amendment.

‘This has had significant ramifications both in terms of the significant delay in paying the fees and also the amount of court resources that have additionally had to be utilised.‘

According to the judgment, the firm blamed a single fee earner who had conduct of the amended claims and said her involvement showed this was not a deliberate or systematic abuse of process. The court heard that this unqualified litigation executive who joined in 2022 had conduct of 36% of the cavity wall files, and failed to pay or proffer the increased fee in 88% of her cases.

In three of the four test cases, the defendant also raised concerns about expert evidence provided through initial reports from Charles Millar. At the time of making the reports, Millar was the director of a company called Eco Serv Surveyors Limited, which had been responsible for initially approaching the claimants.

David Toyn, a solicitor and technical manager of SSB’s cavity wall department, submitted that there was ‘simply no basis’ for assuming Millar’s evidence was tainted by a lack of independence. The judge said this submission was ‘either erroneous or disingenuous’ and that evidence suggested Millar had a significant financial interest in the case at the time of producing a report which was supposed to be independent.

The court heard that SSB had also acted for a claimant in May 2022 when the same defendant set out concerns about Millar and Eco Serv in considerable detail. That court found Millar was never independent as he was director of a company connected with a claims management company which would receive a percentage of compensation from the case winning.

The judge in the latest case concluded it was an abuse of the court’s process to issue claims based on expert evidence from Millar when SSB had been informed there were significant concerns, supported by a disclosed document, as to his independence in a previous case.

‘Whether that is indicative of a systematic and significant mismanagement is a question which the claimants’ solicitors need to consider,’ added the judge.

SSB was told to seek fresh expert evidence ‘as a matter of urgency’ and given three months to obtain new reports. The firm was also ordered to pay the costs of any application that was based on an abuse of process and was debarred from recovering any costs incurred at the date when the claim was issued.