Government consults on introducing fixed recoverable costs for claims up to £100,000

On 28 March 2019, the government published a consultation seeking views on implementing the proposals in Lord Justice Jackson’s report on fixed recoverable costs ("FRC") for civil claims, which was published on 31 July 2017 (see this post). The consultation will be open until 6 June 2019.

Lord Justice Jackson's report recommended extending the current FRC regime to all fast track cases (not just personal injury, as currently) and introducing FRC for a new "intermediate track" that would include less complex claims between £25,000 and £100,000 and would operate on the basis of streamlined procedures.

The new consultation paper states that the government agrees with these recommendations, except that it does not consider it necessary to introduce a new track in light of the costs and complexity that that would involve. Instead, the proposal is to assign such "intermediate" cases to an extended fast track, where all cases would be subject to FRC.

The consultation paper goes on to say that, as well as implementing these reforms (subject to the consultation), it remains the government's intention to extend the areas in which costs are controlled in due course and that:

"such an extension could include extending FRC to further categories of claims, including claims of higher value, and controlling costs incurred before the first costs and case management conference (CCMC), where cases are not otherwise subject to FRC".