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

As to counsel’s fees, no issue is taken by the claimants with the fee of £26,000 for trial, including trial preparation. However, the figure of £32,500 for “advice/conference/documents” is criticised as excessive, on the basis that counsel had no involvement in preparing statements of case, and the defendants had solicitors dealing with disclosure and witness statements. The defendant’s counsel says that the total figure of £58,500 was in fact an understatement as a result of an administrative error. He says that the sum sought covers all the advisory work in the time that counsel has represented the defendants, the trial and two interlocutory hearings. I can well understand that that could have been significant, and I am not prepared to go behind what counsel says, ie that it does represent work done by him on this case. The real problem is that, if there is significant reliance by solicitors on counsel in the run-up to trial, that reduces the scope for solicitors’ profit costs, and vice versa.