The Numbers First
TfL said it had incurred £1,201,444.75. It sought £720,866.85 on account, which is exactly 60%. Cubic accepted that a payment on account was due but argued for no more than £300,000.
The judge ordered the full amount sought.
Cubic Won the Argument and Lost the Application
This is what makes the case worth reading rather than merely noting. Cubic Transportation Systems Ltd v Transport for London [2026] EWHC 211 (TCC), 5 February 2026, Mr Roger ter Haar KC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge.
The judge accepted Cubic’s propositions of law. He endorsed the submission that “there is no fixed percentage of a receiving party’s costs which should be awarded”, and that the appropriate amount depends on:
- “the level of the costs claimed, relative to the Court’s provisional assessment of what amount would be reasonable and proportionate”; and
- “the quality of the information provided”.
Having accepted all of that, he ordered 60% anyway — because on this evidence 60% was comfortably safe.
Why 60% Is Not a Tariff
The shorthand that courts “usually award 60 to 70%” survives because it is often roughly what happens. Cubic shows why it is the wrong way to think about the question. The percentage is an output, not an input: the court forms a provisional view of what will survive detailed assessment and orders a figure it is confident sits below that.
The judge put his conclusion in terms that make the reasoning explicit: “I have no doubt that on the detailed assessment TfL will recover at least £720,866.85.” That is not a percentage of a schedule. It is a floor, tested against the evidence.
What Persuaded the Court
- the substantial sums at issue in a high-value public procurement;
- a substantial volume of witness evidence, despite a one-day hearing;
- the complexity indicated by what the judge called “the prestigious roll call of counsel”; and
- Cubic’s own costs of the same application, at £1,182,020.75.
That last one deserves attention. A paying party arguing that £720,866.85 could not possibly survive assessment, while having spent £1,182,020.75 itself on the same application, is making an argument the court can weigh directly against its own conduct.
What a Receiving Party Should Provide
The second limb — the quality of the information — is the one within your control, and it is the one most often skimped. The court is being asked to form a provisional view without a detailed assessment, so give it the material to do that:
- a schedule that shows the shape of the work, not just a total;
- fee earner grades and rates, with the reason for senior involvement;
- disbursements identified and evidenced, counsel’s fees separated out;
- where a budget exists, the claimed figure read against it; and
- a sum sought that is visibly conservative rather than optimistic.
A request the court can be confident about gets paid. A request it cannot verify gets discounted, and the discount is the court protecting itself against your lack of detail.
What a Paying Party Has to Do
Cubic is a lesson here too. Arguing that a percentage is too high does not engage with the question. The court is asking what will survive assessment, so the answer has to be built the same way: identify the work that will not be recovered, the rates that will be reduced, the duplication, the disproportion — and show why the resulting figure is materially below the sum sought.
“No more than £300,000”, without that scaffolding, is a number rather than an argument.
How DMD Costs Can Help
Payments on account sit inside the recovery work we do every day. We prepare the schedules and the supporting material behind an application, and we draw the bills of costs that the provisional view is ultimately tested against. The stage-by-stage recovery checklist sets out where this falls in the sequence.
Send us the file and we will confirm the fixed fee before any work begins.
A Note on Sources
Citation, court, date, judge, figures and quoted wording were checked against a report of the approved judgment before this note was written. A secondary point about an interested party’s costs has been left out because it could be confirmed from only one source.