Court of Appeal
Date: 22/05/03

The Issues: Because of the large number of challenges to CFAs by Defendants, the Civil Appeals Office brought together a number of appeals raising important issues. Three issues were considered: (1) the circumstances in which, in detailed assessment proceedings, a court should force a successful Claimant “to its election”, (force the Claimant to elect either to disclose its CFA to the defendant or to try to prove its compliance with CFA Regulations by other means and/or ask the Court to take account of the fact that the Claimant may have a legitimate interest in not disclosing the CFA); (2) the proper construction of the words “satisfies all of the conditions applicable to it” in s58(1) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, and whether costs and disbursements are recoverable in the event of non-compliance; and (3) whether on the facts of these particular cases, the requirements of CFA Regulations 2, 3 and 4 had been complied with.