“the parties shall give disclosure of documents in accordance with Sections 1A and 1B of the Disclosure Review Documents (“DRDs”) as amended by the parties and the Court and attached to this Order (in a composite form in respect of Claim No BL-2018002520 and a full DRD in respect of Claim No BL- 2019-001573). ”
“Costs management orders 3.15 (1) In addition to exercising its other powers, the court may manage the costs to be incurred (the budgeted costs) by any party in any proceedings. (2) The court may at any time make a ‘costs management order’. Where costs budgets have been filed and exchanged the court will make a costs management order unless it is satisfied that the litigation can be conducted justly and at proportionate cost in accordance with the overriding objective without such an order being made. By a costs management order the court will— (a) record the extent to which the budgeted costs are agreed between the parties; (b) in respect of the budgeted costs which are not agreed, record the court’s approval after making appropriate revisions; (c) record the extent (if any) to which incurred costs are agreed. (3) If a costs management order has been made, the court will thereafter control the parties’ budgets in respect of recoverable costs. (my emphasis) (4) Whether or not the court makes a costs management order, it may record on the face of any case management order any comments it has about the incurred costs which are to be taken into account in any subsequent assessment proceedings. (8). A costs management order concerns the totals allowed for each phase of the budget, and while the underlying detail in the budget for each phase used by the party to calculate the totals claimed is provided for reference purposes to assist the court in fixing a budget, it is not the role of the court in the costs management hearing to fix or approve the hourly rates claimed in the budget.”
“7.6 Each party shall revise its budget in respect of future costs upwards or downwards, if significant developments in the litigation warrant such revisions. Such amended budgets shall be submitted to the other parties for agreement. In default of agreement, the amended budgets shall be submitted to the court, together with a note of (a) the changes made and the reasons for those changes and (b) the objections of any other party. The court may approve, vary or disapprove the revisions, having regard to any significant developments which have occurred since the date when the previous budget was approved or agreed.”
“I certify that the costs and disbursements included in this variation are not included in any previous budgeted costs or variation (including any contingency) whether agreed or approved by the court.”
“Estimated Costs for Disclosure As clarified at the CCMC, the costs set out in our costs budget were based upon the Models of Disclosure we proposed at that stage. The costs set out section 2 of the DRD for the Negligence Claim were the estimated costs of conducting disclosure on the Models proposed by your client (i.e. a combination of Models C and D). As our Leading Counsel explained at the CCMC the estimate based upon your Models of Disclosure was based on the present volume of data we understand to be held by our clients' custodians, as a result of the enquiries undertaken by our clients' e-disclosure provider (Transperfect) and on the basis of various assumptions provided by it. With focused search terms, and Model C requests we anticipate this estimated cost will be significantly reduced and it is abundantly clear that disclosure in line with Model C will result in very significantly reduced costs than under Model D. Furthermore, to carry out Model C disclosure in the fashion set out above will not ‘waste’ costs in the event that further disclosure is required on a search basis. We are continuing to liaise with Transperfect to obtain further detail as to the volume of data held by third party custodians and to harvest the data in order for searches to be undertaken. This should provide a better indication of the costs involved and we will provide an updated costs estimate in due course. Costs Budget Subject to the discussions between respective Junior Counsel and based on our assumptions set out for disclosure in our costs budget (which assumed Model A/B only) we intend to file an updated costs budget in advance of the next costs and case management conference, with a revised estimate for disclosure costs and the costs of attending a second hearing to conclude the CCMC. Following the CCMC, it was agreed between respective Leading Counsel that any revisions to costs budgets should be limited to estimated costs which have not already been agreed. Where there is agreement, estimated costs should remain as set out in the current costs budgets.”
“The term “significant developments” is not defined. It appears to include any event, circumstance or steps which is of such a size and nature as to go beyond the events, circumstances and steps which were taken into account, expressly or impliedly, in the budget previously approved or agreed. A development is taken into account impliedly if it is something that was or should reasonably have been anticipated by the applicant for revision at the time of the previously approved budget. This paragraph and [Sharp] was applied in Seekings v Moores[2019] EWHC 1476 (comm) (Judge Worster).”
“An order for variation cannot be made in order to remedy a budget in respect of developments which could or should have been covered at an earlier approval or variation.”