A recent decision in the Macclesfield County Court has again proved favourable to Claimants seeking to recover their full ATE premiums. The Court has ruled that for a standard, straightforward motor policy of £367.50 there is no reason for it to examine how the premium is calculated, and therefore no reason why the Claimant’s solicitors should have to tell the Defendant whether the ATE insurer has paid them any commission.

The decision in Rogers v Luteaim concerned a successful Claimant whowas entitled to his fixed recoverable costs for an RTA including a “ClaimSafe” ATE premium of £367.50 arranged by Box Legal. The Defendant’s costs draftsmen wanted the Claimant’s solicitors to disclose whether they would receive any commission from the insurer once the ATE policy premium was paid. They had no evidence of any commission, just a suspicion that there might be some. The costs draftsmen wanted to rely on Section 11.10 of the Part 44 Practice Direction which allowed the Court to take into account the amount of commission payable to the receiving party’s solicitors.

The Court accepted that if it was going to assess whether any commission was reasonable, it would need to survey premiums and commissions across the whole ATE industry – a daunting prospect. The Court also observed that it was in any case very likely to allow some quite substantial commission, so the overall reduction in the recoverable premium might only be £50 or so – hardly worth the cost of the complex comparison exercise.

The Court therefore ruled that it was not prepared to “dissect” an ordinary, unexceptional premium of £367.50, especially where there was no Claims Management Company seeking to include non-insurance work as part of the premium (as there had been in Claims Direct/Accident Group cases). If a hearing was going to take place to decide how much of the premium was reasonable, the whole fixed costs rationale would be undermined.

Many solicitors have reported that Costs Draftsmen are still continuing to ask numerous irrelevant questions (44 questions in one relatively straightforward case!). It is at least now clear that they are not entitled to ask whether solicitors receive any ATE commission, and clearly if there is a commission then the Claimant’s solicitors have no obligation to disclose the amount. Claimants are therefore likely to strongly resist such queries in future.