Contact Our Dispute Resolution Solicitors
Myerson Solicitor's Dispute Resolution team have a wealth of knowledge relating to the litigation process. If you need professional legal advice, contact our lawyers on:
Most civil claims valued up to £100,000 issued on or after 1st October 2023 will be subject to a new fixed recoverable costs (FRC) system.
Under the new rules, cases valued up to £25,000 will be allocated to the fast track, and less complex cases under £100,000 will be allocated to a newly created, separate intermediate track.
However, the regime will only apply to personal injury claims, where the cause of action has accrued on or after 1st October 2023 and disease claims, where the letter of claim has not been sent to the defendant before this date.
The extension of the FRC system aims to make costs fairer and more transparent and the litigation process more efficient, although it is likely that there will be a possibility of satellite litigation over track allocation and the complexity bands.
The new system extends Fixed Recoverable Costs to cover most civil cases with a value of up to £100,000, including non-personal RTA, RTA personal injury, employers’ liability, public liability, professional negligence, tracked possessions, and defended debt claims or property and business disputes, unless they fall within the multi-track or are excluded.
The types of claims excluded from the new FRC regime (allocated to the multi-track) are:
The extension of the FRC will not apply to part 8 claims, CPR 8.9 (c) stating that part 8 claims should be allocated to the multi-track, judicial review cases and Solicitors Act 1974 challenges.
Practice Direction 45 sets out how much the Fixed Recoverable Costs are in each scenario, depending on which complexity band applies to the case and at what stage the case was settled or resolved.
Table 12 of the new CPR PD 45 sets out the FRC for claims allocated to the fast track, and Table 14 sets out the fixed costs for claims in the intermediate track.
The bands are categorised in ascending order of complexity, meaning that the higher the band of complexity, the greater the FRC.
The type of claims that fall into the complexity bands in the fast track are as follows:
The criteria for complexity bands in the intermediate track are as follows:
Changes are also being made to Part 36 offers.
An additional 35% is to be awarded where a claimant obtains a judgment against the defendant, which is at least as advantageous to the claimant as the proposals contained in their part 36 offer.
A claimant will be able to recover a 35% additional uplift on their costs; however, this does not apply to the defendant.
This new regime will likely cause disputes in relation to track allocation.
Many parties may claim that their case is over £25,000 and is therefore suited to the intermediate track, as this will attract greater FRC.
Alternatively, parties may argue that their claim is too complex to be dealt with in the intermediate track to escape the FRC regime entirely.
It is anticipated that there will be disagreements over the complexity of cases for the purposes of allocating in band 4 in the intermediate track.
For civil claims that fall within this category, case law will be required to establish what type of cases will be regarded as sufficiently ‘complex’.
Myerson Solicitor's Dispute Resolution team have a wealth of knowledge relating to the litigation process. If you need professional legal advice, contact our lawyers on: