Civil way: 19 April 2013

JACKCHAT

Gotcha!

If you thought you might escape paying an allocation fee on a plus £1,500 CPR Pt 7 claim on filing the new directions questionnaire (quite independently, of course, from your usual attempt at ducking the listing and hearing fees by drafting case management directions which provide for pre-trial checklists to be dispensed with) then think again. The Civil Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2013 (SI 2013/734) which squeezed into force on 1 April 2013 having been made four days earlier (phew!) provides for the fee to be paid when an allocation or directions questionnaire is filed or when a case is allocated to track without a questionnaire. Another fees order is expected soon: court users are quaking.

Back door

Fixed costs in fast-track cases did not happen as Jackson LJ had envisaged and the amendment CPR unsurprisingly make no provision for fast-track costs management. How will proportionality be applied to fast tracks? Jackson LJ has suggested that the costs claimed by the fast-track receiving