The High Court has awarded Bristow Ireland Ltd. most of its costs as a notice party in proceedings brought by CHC Ireland DAC, while excluding costs for written submissions similar to those of the Minister for Transport and for a separate half-day hearing.
Mr Justice Twomey delivered the costs judgment on 24 October 2023. The underlying judicial review concerned CHC’s attempt to suspend the State’s award of a public contract to Bristow. The court had already rejected that attempt; this judgment addressed whether Bristow should recover costs for its participation.
The judge applied the Court of Appeal’s guidance that a successful notice party is presumptively entitled to costs, while recognising that the presumption can be displaced where the party adds little to the respondent’s case. He said the court should take a broad-brush approach rather than scrutinise costs line by line.
CHC accepted that Bristow should receive costs for affidavit evidence supporting the Minister’s case, including evidence addressing whether Bristow could begin the contracted search and rescue aviation services by 1 July 2025. CHC disputed Bristow’s entitlement to costs for attending the hearing.
The court allowed hearing costs, citing the seriousness of CHC’s allegation that Bristow could not meet the start date and that lives could be put at risk; the urgency of the case, which ran for about six weeks; the approximately 2,500 pages generated shortly before the High Court hearing; the one-day length of that hearing; and the contract’s stated value of €800 million over 10 years. The judge considered it reasonable for Bristow to have been represented in those circumstances.
But the court excluded costs for Bristow’s written legal submissions because they were very similar to the Minister’s submissions. The judge accepted that the tight timetable explained the similarity but said CHC should not effectively pay twice for the same work.
Bristow also received no costs for a half-day hearing on 19 July 2023, which CHC had requested after information emerged about a proposed Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications meeting concerning the contract award. The judge considered the separation-of-powers issue raised at that hearing was for the Minister to address, and that Bristow had nothing substantial to add. Although Bristow had commercial interests in attending, the court said CHC should not pay for that attendance.