CL-2020-000092 - [2025] EWHC 2786 (Comm)

CRF had issued an application seeking permission to commence a detailed assessment of its costs of BNC’s application forthwith. Little was said about that application on behalf of CRF. The Defendants contended that this application should be dismissed because it amounted to an impermissible attempt to revisit paragraph 6 of the Judgment Order, which was a final order; and, in any event was without merit.

Even if I assume that it is open to CRF to invite the revisiting of paragraph 6 of the Judgment Order, I decline to order the immediate detailed assessment of CRF’s costs. The general rule is that the costs of any proceedings are not to be assessed by way of detailed assessment until the conclusion of the proceedings (CPR r. 47.1). There seems to me no good reason why that general position should be disapplied, in circumstances where CRF has already received a substantial payment on account, and where the Judgment Order provides for interest on costs. An immediate detailed assessment would also require the parties to engage in a complex and time-consuming process at the same time as progressing the matter to trial. Accordingly I refuse CRF’s application in this respect.