9.9.12 Costs
Subject to some very limited exceptions192 costs orders in IPEC are subject to a costs cap. The court will not order a party to pay total costs of more than GBP 60,000 on the final determination of a claim in relation to liability193 and no more than GBP 25,000 on an inquiry as to damages or an account of profits.194 In addition to these overall caps, various stage caps are also applied, capping the costs recoverable for each stage of the litigation.195
In IPEC, all costs (other than the costs of an interim hearing in which a party is held to have behaved unreasonably)196 are summarily assessed after trial. The party seeking its costs will submit a detailed summary of its costs broken down into the relevant stages. The court assesses the parties’ actual costs for each stage and applies any appropriate deduction at this stage. The resulting figure is compared with the cap for that stage, and the party receives the lower of the two. The various subtotals for each stage are summed, and the party will receive that sum subject to the overall cap.197 As costs are assessed summarily, there is no need to award an interim payment on account. There is no requirement for costs budgets in IPEC.