The Court of Appeal has refused to reopen its costs ruling in a dispute between Recorded Artists Actors Performers Limited (RAAP) and Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Limited (PPI), saying the request did not meet the exceptional threshold for revisiting a final decision.
The court had issued its judgment on the appeals on 3 April 2020 and invited the parties to agree an order covering the outcome and costs. When they could not agree, the court received written and oral submissions on the form of order and costs. It reserved its decision and issued a supplemental judgment on costs on 5 June 2020.
RAAP’s solicitors then asked the registrar to allow further submissions. They said the costs decision, if left uncorrected, would cause a “grave injustice”. The court allowed short submissions on the issue, which RAAP identified as an alleged misunderstanding of its position that meant the costs award proceeded on a mistaken premise.
In its judgment delivered on 24 June 2020, the court said it was not appropriate to reargue the merits of the costs decision on the basis that it had allegedly misunderstood the factual or legal position. It held that the facts did not engage the court’s “wholly exceptional” jurisdiction to revisit a final decision. The court said an attempt to reverse its costs decision in the way proposed by RAAP was “strongly deprecated”.
The ruling addresses RAAP’s request to revisit the costs decision. The source does not set out the underlying appeal’s merits or the terms of the costs order.