[2025] EWHC 2901 (Comm)

The Defendant accepts that it must pay the Claimant’s costs of the action (subject to the issue of the costs of the specific disclosure application). The Claimant contends that those costs should be paid on an indemnity basis while the Defendant submits that they should pay the costs on the standard basis. As became apparent during the course of the oral hearing, the principal consequence of an order that the costs should be paid on an indemnity basis is that it would enable the Claimant to seek to recover costs in excess of the sums allowed in the approved costs budget in circumstances where the total of the Claimant’s approved budgeted costs is £546,730.50 and the Claimant claims to have incurred costs of £1,202,957.09. In other words, the Claimant’s claimed actual costs spend exceeds the approved budgeted costs by £656,226.59.