Legal costs resulting from conditional fee agreements (CFAs) could be disallowed as the result of a Court of Appeal ruling.
In the case of Myatt vs National Coal Board, the solicitors had failed to take reasonable steps to consider whether the client had alternative methods of funding the claim while in Garrett vs Halton MBC the solicitors had failed to declare a financial interest in recommending a particular insurance product connected to a claims management company.
In both cases, the Court of Appeal held that the solicitors' failings had materially and adversely affected the protection afforded to the client by the CFA regulatory framework, with the result that the entire costs were disallowed.
The consequences of this judgment could be far reaching. Any CFAs with similar failings are at risk of having all the costs disallowed if challenged by a paying party.
