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Proposal 58
A rule should be introduced to enable offers similar to Part 36 offers under the CPR to be
made in the context of the taxation of costs.
Interim Report paras 610-612
The aims of sanctioned offers and payments discussed above in the context of
taxations. As the Interim Report pointed out,
the cost of taxations is often
disproportionate. It follows that a mechanism which enables either party to make a
sanctioned payment or offer which forces the other party to give serious thought to
settling a dispute as to costs and to avoiding an expensive hearing ought to be
promoted.
The contemplated mechanism is a sanctioned payment into court in the case of the
paying party and a sanctioned offer in the case of the receiving party. Thus, if the
sanctioned payment is not less than the sum ultimately recovered by the receiving
party after taxation, the receiving party might be ordered to bear the entire costs of the
taxation from the time the sanctioned payment was made, possibly on a higher than
party and party basis. And where the receiving party has made a sanctioned offer to
accept a sum smaller than the sum eventually awarded to him after the taxation, the
paying party should have to pay not only the costs of the taxation (themselves taxed on
a suitable basis) but also interest on the sum of costs awarded at a suitably enhanced
interest rate (as with sanctioned offers generally).
This proposal received general support.
However, the Legal Aid Department
suggested, and the Working Party agrees, that this proposal should not apply to
legally-aided parties who are subject to a different regime for the control of costs.
Notes
At §608.
Including from the Bar Association (subject to further consultation), the BSCPI, the Law Society, the
HKFLA, the HKMLA, the JCGWG, the High Court masters, one set of barristers' chambers and two
firms of solicitors.
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