How This Index Works
Every costs decision covered on this site, grouped by what it actually decides rather than by date. Each entry gives the citation, the point, and a link to the full note.
These are written from the judgments and revised when a decision is overturned. That matters more in costs than it sounds: the conduct-of-litigation line below reversed completely on appeal, and material still describing the first-instance position as good law is not merely dated but wrong.
Who May Do Costs Work
CILEX and others v Mazur and others [2026] EWCA Civ 369
Court of Appeal, 31 March 2026. An unauthorised person may lawfully carry out tasks within the conduct of litigation for and on behalf of an authorised individual who retains direction, control and responsibility. Supervision must be real and proportionate. This overturned the September 2025 High Court ruling that had held the opposite. Read the note.
The Bill Itself
Duffy v Birmingham City Council [2026] EWCA Civ 146
Court of Appeal. A defective indemnity-principle certification does not automatically invalidate service of the bill; CPR 3.10 can cure procedural error, and the paying party is expected to engage rather than lie in wait. Not a licence to serve a defective bill. Read the note.
The Winros Partnership v Global Energy Horizons Corporation [2026] EWCA Civ 654
Court of Appeal, 22 May 2026. A solicitor who accepted the client’s repudiatory breach of a CFA could not recover on a quantum meruit: where the agreement addressed termination, no different basis could be implied. A Solicitors Act solicitor-client dispute rather than an inter partes authority, but it completes the entitlement picture — the retainer is where recoverability begins. Read the note.
HD & Ors v North Devon Healthcare Trust & Ors [2026] EWHC 2009 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office, 4 August 2026. The CFA covered negotiation or assessment of the costs, so completing the costs process was part of the retainer. The solicitor abandoned the claims, the retainers became unenforceable, and with no liability to their own solicitor the claimants had nothing to recover. Six assessments struck out, alternatively assessed at nil, £92,000 in payments on account repaid, CPR 47.8 unless orders for the wider cohort and CPR 44.11 orders against the former solicitor. Read the note.
Kapoor v Johal [2024] EWHC 2853 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office. A bill claiming £258,583.78 assessed at nil under CPR 44.11 where the client had been invoiced around £84,000. The indemnity principle is a ceiling, and a bill that does not reconcile with the interim statute bills puts the whole claim at risk rather than a line of it. Read the note.
Ward v Rai [2026] EWCA Civ 816
Court of Appeal, 2 July 2026. A Costs Judge who declined to strike out a vague point of dispute, and allowed an annotated schedule served two working days before the hearing, was within the generous ambit of his discretion. PD 47 para 8.2 still requires an Ainsworth compliant approach; what moved is the consequence of ignoring it. Read the note.
LM1 Limited v Seacroft Film Investments Limited [2026] EWHC 2212 (Ch)
High Court, 21 August 2026. A £74,075.60 bill was struck out for claiming the costs of the whole action where the entitlement was to the counterclaim alone. Under Medway Oil only the costs specifically referable to the counterclaim are recoverable — the rest are claim costs and are not apportioned. The redrawn bill of £46,755.35 was called astonishing, and the receiving party then won its application and recovered no costs at all. Read the note.
Disbursements and Expert Fees
JXX v Archibald [2026] EWHC 630 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office. Medical reporting organisation charges are disbursements rather than outsourced profit costs, and a 25% mark-up was allowed on the evidence. It is a first-instance benchmark that paying parties now deploy, not a statutory cap. Read the note.
Under appeal. JXX and MIB v Santiago are listed in the Court of Appeal two days apart in March 2027, both on how much of an agency charge is recoverable and what must be disclosed to justify it. Anything built on the 25% figure should be treated as provisional until then — what the appeals could decide.
Money Before Assessment
Magomedov v Rabinovich [2026] EWHC 962 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office, 24 April 2026. No jurisdiction to order security for the costs of a detailed assessment under CPR 25: CPR 47 is a self-contained code with no express importation of CPR 25, and a receiving party is not a defendant to the costs claim. The interim costs certificate under CPR 47.16 is the mechanism the regime does provide. Read the note.
Cubic Transportation Systems Ltd v Transport for London [2026] EWHC 211 (TCC)
Technology and Construction Court, 5 February 2026. There is no fixed percentage for a payment on account. The amount turns on the costs claimed measured against the court’s provisional view of what is reasonable and proportionate, and on the quality of the information provided. TfL sought 60% of £1,201,444.75 and got all of it, because the judge had “no doubt” it would recover at least that on assessment. Read the note.
Conduct and the Basis of Assessment
The New Lottery Company Ltd v The Gambling Commission [2026] EWHC 1311 (TCC)
Technology and Construction Court, 22 May 2026. Indemnity costs awarded for the entirety of proceedings after issues were abandoned wholesale and serious allegations dropped. Proportionality is not a relevant factor in deciding whether to order indemnity costs, and once ordered the paying party forfeits proportionality arguments at assessment. Read the note.
Part 36 and Timing
Timokhin v Timokhina [2026] EWHC 1194 (KB)
King’s Bench Division, 19 May 2026. An offer at 91% of the claim was a genuine attempt to settle under CPR 36.17(5)(e), because the claimant had a rational basis for regarding his prospects as strong. Binariness in a recognition and enforcement claim did not make a high offer improper. There is no percentage threshold, and the party resisting the consequences faces a formidable obstacle. Read the note.
Attersley v UK Insurance Limited [2026] EWCA Civ 217
Court of Appeal, 24 March 2026. A Part 36 offer accepted 16 months late, after the claim had been allocated to the multi-track. The costs regime was fixed by the expiry of the relevant period, not by the date of acceptance, because Part 36 is a self-contained code in which certainty is essential. Concerns the pre-October 2023 regime, and expressly leaves two timing combinations undecided. Read the note.
Entitlement and the Route to Recovery
Alphabet (UK) Ltd v AXA Insurance UK Plc [2026] EWHC 674 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office, 23 March 2026. Issuing proceedings to recover pre-action costs a defendant refuses to pay is not an abuse, and the test for instructing solicitors is reasonableness rather than necessity, judged when the decision was taken. The claimant won both points and recovered £599 against £1,006.80 claimed, because fixed costs governed the sum. A Part 7 claim, not CPR 46.14. Read the note.
Recovery in Specific Claim Types
Smith v Wigan Borough Council [2026] EWHC 660 (SCCO)
Senior Courts Costs Office. A £1,000 housing disrepair settlement does not automatically restrict costs to small claims track levels under CPR 46.13. The question is what the claim was reasonably worth on the evidence, and the evidential burden sits with the paying party. Read the note.
Abbott v Ministry of Defence [2026] EWHC 941 (KB)
King’s Bench Division. The substantive military NIHL decision on quantification method, audiograms, tinnitus and de minimis, and what it means for how a MoD NIHL bill should be built. Read the note.
Abbott v Ministry of Defence (costs) [2026] EWHC 2083 (KB)
King’s Bench Division. 60% of common costs, the arithmetic behind a £2.5m payment on account, and why the quality of the costs documentation put before the court directly affected the interim award. Read the note.
What This Index Does Not Do
It does not pretend to be every costs decision of the year. It is the set this practice has read in full and written up, which is a smaller and more useful thing than a digest assembled from headnotes. Where a case is not here, we have not covered it rather than judged it unimportant.
How DMD Costs Can Help
We prepare and negotiate claimant costs for solicitor firms in housing disrepair, MoD NIHL and clinical negligence. If a decision above bears on a live file, or you want a bill or budget prepared, send us the file and we will confirm a fixed fee before any work begins.