The Court of Appeal has reduced the Best committee’s award of costs for proceedings after a 2018 High Court judgment from 65% to 20%, and set aside an order that former Bloxham managing partner Pramit Ghose pay those costs personally.
In a judgment delivered on 13 March 2024, the court substituted an order awarding the respondents 20% of their costs for the period from 28 June 2018 to 9 June 2020 against specified Bloxham defendants on a joint and several basis. The order excludes the seventh and eleventh defendants. The court also corrected a separate part of the High Court costs ruling so that expert expenses were assigned to the defendants covered by the substituted order, rather than to Mr Ghose alone.
The appeal concerned only part of a High Court costs ruling delivered in August 2022. The underlying case was brought by Margaret Best and Carmel Best as joint committee of Kenneth Best, a ward of court. In 2018, the High Court held that Bloxham Stockbrokers Partnership had an obligation to account for its management of funds held for Mr Best. After further hearings, it found in 2020 that Mr Ghose’s account and supporting material sufficiently complied with that obligation. The Court of Appeal’s judgment did not reopen those rulings.
The High Court had ordered the plaintiffs’ costs up to the 2018 judgment against several defendants jointly and severally. For the later period, it awarded 65% of the plaintiffs’ costs against Mr Ghose personally. The appeal court found no identified legal principle or factual change that justified separating him from the other partners and imposing that personal liability. It said the later proceedings continued the same dispute over Bloxham’s obligation to account.
The Court of Appeal left a costs award in place but reduced its share. It upheld the High Court judge’s concerns that the plaintiffs’ expert wrongly maintained that the obligation to account had not been met, that the plaintiffs’ pursuit of further material added time and effort, and that relevant documents had not been sought until after the 2018 judgment. It also considered that Mr Ghose’s report was ultimately accepted as sufficient in the 2020 judgment, a factor the High Court’s percentage calculation had not expressly addressed.
The appeal succeeded in part. Each side had some success, so the Court of Appeal made no order as to the costs of the appeal. It invited any party disputing the proposed costs order to notify the court office for a further listing on 21 March 2024.