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£1,131 per hour? 'Clear and compelling justification' required to recover above guideline says Court of Appeal

In a one-day appeal concerning the appropriate forum for trial, US law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP had their costs reduced from £72,800 to £55,000.


The highest rate claimed in the schedule of costs was £1,131.75 per hour for a grade A fee earner, converted from a rate of $1,475.75 and up to £704 per hour for grade C.

Accepting that the rates it was seeking were above the guidelines, CGS&H pointed out that this was almost always the case in competition litigation and that, where possible, they had delegated and allocated work to more junior team members.

Lord Justice Males said that although he recognised that in substantial and complex litigation an hourly rate in excess of the guideline figure may sometimes be appropriate, it was important to have in mind the fact that the guideline rates for London already assume that the work is 'very heavy commercial work'. It was not enough to say that the case was a 'commercial case, or a competition case, or that it has an international element, unless there is something about these factors in the case in question which justifies exceeding the guideline rate' and that there was nothing in the appeal that justified exceeding the guideline rate. The case was not document heavy and the amount claimed at £900,00 was modest by the standards of commercial cases.

Details

£1,131 per hour? 'Clear and compelling justification' required to recover above guideline says Court of Appeal

In a one-day appeal concerning the appropriate forum for trial, US law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP had their costs reduced from £72,800 to £55,000.


The highest rate claimed in the schedule of costs was £1,131.75 per hour for a grade A fee earner, converted from a rate of $1,475.75 and up to £704 per hour for grade C.

Accepting that the rates it was seeking were above the guidelines, CGS&H pointed out that this was almost always the case in competition litigation and that, where possible, they had delegated and allocated work to more junior team members.

Lord Justice Males said that although he recognised that in substantial and complex litigation an hourly rate in excess of the guideline figure may sometimes be appropriate, it was important to have in mind the fact that the guideline rates for London already assume that the work is 'very heavy commercial work'. It was not enough to say that the case was a 'commercial case, or a competition case, or that it has an international element, unless there is something about these factors in the case in question which justifies exceeding the guideline rate' and that there was nothing in the appeal that justified exceeding the guideline rate. The case was not document heavy and the amount claimed at £900,00 was modest by the standards of commercial cases.