BL-2023-BRS-000024 - [2025] EWHC 2898 (Ch)

Accordingly, if I had been summarily assessing the costs payable by the claimants to the defendants, I would have assessed them at £117,000. Instead, however, I am assessing the payment to be made by the claimants to the prescribed charity in respect of the free representation of the defendants by Mr Brown and Morgan Lewis & Bockius. But CPR rule 46.7(3)(b) requires me to apply CPR Parts 44-47 as if the word “costs” referred to “a sum equivalent to the costs that would have been claimed by, incurred by or awarded to the party with pro bono representation in respect of that representation had it not been provided free of charge”. In Manolete, the Court of Appeal made clear that the power to make an order under section 194 was discretionary, and that there was no “requirement that the court make an order in favour of the [prescribed charity] that exactly, or even so far as possible, corresponds to the costs order it would have made in the absence of pro bono representation.” Moreover, in assessing the figure, the court “err[ed] on the side of caution.”

It is accordingly clear from that case that, having decided to make an order under section 194, and having now to assess the amount, I am not bound to read across from the figure that would be produced by a summary assessment to the figure representing the amount which the claimants have to pay to the charity. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the double legislative purpose of section 194, as set out in the judgment in Manolete, I consider that £117,000 does indeed represent the appropriate amount of the payment to be made by the claimants to the Access to Justice Foundation, and I will so order.