A judge’s finding of no misconduct by lawyers who declared a £221,000 costs budget was challenged in court yesterday in the latest twist in the six-year ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel action.
Footballer’s wife Rebekah Vardy, who was ordered to pay £1.8 million after losing the case in 2022, is appealing the finding of former senior costs judge Gordon-Saker that the conduct of Coleen Rooney’s legal team in producing its costs budget did not amount to misconduct.
Jamie Carpenter KC, for Vardy, said submissions brought on behalf of Rooney 'were clearly misleading and I am using that term neutrally.' Carpenter accepted that ‘no loss was actually caused’ to Vardy as a result of the costs schedules but that the lawyers’ conduct ‘was improper and unreasonable and the learned judge was wrong to conclude otherwise’.
If the appeal is allowed, a ‘proportionate sanction’ would be to limit Rooney’s recoverable costs to the £220,995.07 originally budgeted, he said. Rooney ‘should not be permitted to recover on detailed assessment any costs of the costs budgeting process’.
Benjamin Williams KC, for Rooney, said a costs budget should detail expenses which are ‘reasonable or proportionate’ when it comes to determining costs recoverable on a standard basis assessment. He said: ‘What Miss Vardy is seeking to get out of this application is to unwind a substantial part of the indemnity costs order.’
The court heard there had been ‘no litigation misconduct’ and ‘no one suggests any wrongdoing by Miss Rooney herself’.
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‘Miss Rooney has taken a decision not to put in a costs budget anything on the same scale of which she should be entitled to. The criticism is simply of those advising her,’ Williams added.
In written submissions, Williams said Vardy’s ‘position involved a (misplaced and unfair) attack on the integrity of Mr [Paul] Lunt [Rooney’s solicitor]’. He added: ‘Such an attack should not be made, still less sustained, without it having been put to Mr Lunt for a response. Insofar as [Vardy] continues to contend that criticism can be made of [Rooney]’s solicitor in this appeal, that serves only to perpetuate (and worsen) the impropriety of this attack.
‘Even if this were not the position, it would be unjust and disproportionate to impose a sanction on [Rooney] because of (on this disputed hypothesis) some deficiency in Mr Lunt’s instruction to counsel as to what criticisms to make of [Vardy]’s budget.’
He told the court: ‘We now live in a world where professionals are heavily regulated. There is a regulator which has the power to investigate misconduct. If the court does have concerns, then it should be a matter for the regulator. There is nothing to compensate.’
He said if a sanction was proposed it should not be in ‘such a way that it can draw innocent Mrs Rooney into an unfortunate dispute with her solicitors’.
Judgment was reserved.
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