Category: Part 36

shallow focus photography of black ship

Litigation Lessons: “Weak and speculative” £3.7m professional negligence claimants awarded just £2K

A recent case of Beattie Passive Norse Ltd Anor v Canham Consulting Ltd highlights the importance of causation and repercussions of providing an inaccurate value of a claim.

newspaper-the-mirror-phone-hacking-roxanne-pallett-proceedings-litigation-offer-settlement-part-36-costs

Claimant wins battle over Defendant’s late acceptance of Part 36 offer in phone hacking claim

In Pallett v MGN Ltd, a case concerning the newspaper phone hacking scandal, the High Court orders the Defendant, owner of the Mirror newspaper, to pay all of the Claimant’s costs of the proceedings, despite arguments that they had accepted the settlement offer outside of the 21 day relevant period under CPR Part 36.

part 36 settlement offer litigation advice

Claimant’s Part 36 offer containing error for relevant period held to be compliant

In the High Court case of Essex County Council v UBB Waste (Essex) Ltd (No 3) [2020] EWHC 2387 (TCC), it was held that a Claimant’s Part 36 offer which failed to correctly set out the relevant period was still deemed compliant with Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

rcj royal court justice lawyer london litigate cpr civil commercial financial litigation

Claimant’s Part 36 offer of 99.7% was genuine offer to settle proceedings

In a multi million pound breach of contract case, where there was no substantive defence to the claim and the Defendant accepted summary judgment and liability for the Claimant’s costs, the High Court held that a Claimant’s Part 36 offer to accept only 0.3% less than the full sum being claimed was a “genuine offer to settle” under CPR 36.17(5)(e).

part 36 settlement offer litigation advice

Costs: The perils of making a Calderbank offer without a time limit

Once proceedings have started, it is not correct to assume that all bets are off and it is too late to accept an offer (in all circumstances). In fact, offers that are not time-limited, not withdrawn, and not a Part 36 offer are open for acceptance during a hearing (and therefore capable of acceptance when a party is in the best possible position to know what a judge will order).