A High Court judge has dismissed an appeal brought by Rebekah Vardy against a finding that her ‘Wagatha Christie’ opponent Coleen Rooney’s lawyers did not commit misconduct in relation to costs.
Mr Justice Cavanagh, in Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Rooney, found no unreasonable or improper behaviour on the part of Rooney’s lawyers in relation to their costs budget.
Vardy was ordered to pay £1.8m after losing her libel case against Rooney in 2022. She appealed a finding of former senior costs judge Gordon-Saker that the conduct of Rooney’s legal team in producing its costs budget did not amount to misconduct.
Vardy argued that ‘a misleading impression’ was given because Rooney’s legal team had not made clear that the figures in her costs budget did not set out the actual costs incurred to date, but were an estimate of the incurred costs that would be allowed, at the costs assessment stage, as being ‘reasonable and proportionate’ for a costs award on a standard basis.
Mr Justice Cavanagh said: ‘In my judgment, this case comes within the type of case in which particular deference should be shown to the first instance judge because he was an experienced judge (indeed, arguably the most experienced judge) in a specialist jurisdiction.
‘The question whether there was unreasonable or improper conduct was being considered in the context of costs. A Costs Judge has a particular expertise in, and experience of, costs matters which will inform, in particular, the view as to whether what happened was something which permitted of a reasonable explanation and also whether it was conduct which the consensus of professional opinion would regard as improper.’
Finding the judge was entitled to find as he did, the judgment said the ‘unchallenged evidence’ of Rooney’s solicitor Paul Lunt was ‘credible’. It was ‘entirely understandable’ that a solicitor would set out the costs which, in their view, would be reasonable and proportionate to have incurred and to incur going forward.
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He added: ‘It would have been perfectly reasonable for the defendant’s solicitor to interpret the statement of truth to mean that there was an obligation for each party’s figure for incurred costs in Precedent H to be the reasonable and proportionate costs. Given this was so, it was also legitimate for the judge to draw the further inference that, if [Rooney’s] solicitor came to the conclusion that this was what he was obliged to do, then he would, or might, assume that [Vardy’s] solicitor would adopt the same interpretation of the statement of truth and so would adopt the same approach.’
Dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice Cavanagh said: ‘There was ample material before the judge to justify the conclusion that [Rooney’s] solicitors could have made the assumption that [Vardy’s] solicitors had prepared their Precedent H on a “reasonable and proportionate” basis.
‘In my judgment, the judge was entitled to find that that [Vardy] had not shown that there was unreasonable and/or improper conduct on the part of [Rooney]’s legal team.’
He noted that ‘criticism of a lack [of] transparency’ was a ‘fair comment for the judge to make in light of the evidence before him, but it does not undermine his ultimate conclusion that their behaviour had not, albeit only just had not, crossed over into unreasonable and improper behaviour’.
Jamie Carpenter KC, instructed by Kingsley Napley, appeared for Vardy and Benjamin Williams KC and Robin Dunne, instructed by Brabners, appeared for Rooney.
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