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England and Wales High Court (King's Bench Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (King's Bench Division) Decisions >> BES Commercial Electricity Ltd & Ors v Cheshire West and Chester Council [2022] EWHC 3333 (KB) (21 December 2022) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2022/3333.html Cite as: [2022] EWHC 3333 (KB) |
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KING'S BENCH DIVISION
As amended under the slip rule pursuant to CPR 40.12 (1)
on 21 December 2022 by Mr Justice Freedman
Amended pursuant to the order of Mr Justice Freedman
dated 25 May 2023 lifting Reporting Restrictions
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
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BES COMMERCIAL ELECTRICITY LIMITED BUSINESS ENERGY SOLUTIONS LIMITED BES WATER LIMITED COMMERCIAL POWER LIMITED |
Claimants |
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- and – |
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CHESHIRE WEST AND CHESTER COUNCIL |
Defendant |
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Fiona Barton KC and Sarah Dobbie (instructed by Clyde & Co LLP) for the Defendant
Hearing date: 5 December 2022
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Crown Copyright ©
MR JUSTICE FREEDMAN:
Costs Budget
(i) The costs projected for the PTR and the reasons why this extended. This Court knows about the application which was added to the PTR of the application to strike out witness statements, but the detail of the other applications and how they became extended or more expensive are matters where the Costs Judge will have more information than is available to this Court;
(ii) The trial preparation which became dogged by issues regarding trial bundles and the like are again not known to this Court. I was able to see that there was a vast number of bundles, and it is not difficult to imagine the difficulties of the kind of which I was told. However, the Costs Judge will be able to see the nature and extent of the problem and its consequences and will thereby have a deeper understanding.
(iii) As regards the trial itself, I do have some greater degree of knowledge than about other matters. However, my knowledge is not greater than that which will be available to a fully appraised Costs Judge. The Costs Judge will see the documents in the context of an examination about costs, whereas I was island hopping from file to file, able to see the magnitude, but with little appreciation of how the documents grew to a degree which has prompted the application to depart from the costs budget. The Costs Judge will look at the documents with a degree of experience of when such growth of the documents is a usual incident of a case leading to a long High Court trial, and when the volume of documentation and the length and complexity of the case is such that there is a good reason to depart from the osts budget.
Permission to appeal
(i) very limited in their ambit; see para. 267(1);
(ii) not particularly specific revelations about the investigation: see para. 267(2);
(iii) to people with whom the Defendant was in contact and was entitled to have some communication in connection with the investigation: see para. 267(2);
(iv) to people who were already committed to obtaining redress whether for themselves or others, and who were going to provide statements in any event: see para. 267(1) and para. 267(2);
(v) neither to the media (as in the case of Richard v BBC [2019] Ch 169 cited at length by the Claimants in oral submissions in the permission application) nor to members of the public who were previously ignorant of the information provided: see para. 267(1).