The Court of Appeal has refused Ryanair Limited’s application to delay payment of the respondent’s appeal costs and the inspection of a less redacted B.I. Report. It confirmed its earlier costs order and refused the alternative stays Ryanair sought if it applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The ruling, delivered electronically on 7 May 2021, followed the court’s 15 April dismissal of Ryanair’s appeal against a High Court order for production and inspection of a less redacted report. The court had indicated that Ryanair should pay the respondent’s appeal costs and invited submissions on costs. Ryanair did not oppose the costs award or its assessment, but asked for enforcement to be stayed.
Ryanair argued that if it succeeded in its defamation action, its trial costs would likely exceed the appeal costs and could be set off against them. It also submitted that the respondent lived in St Barts, outside the EU, making recovery of costs more difficult. The court said it could not assess the likelihood or relative difficulty of recovering costs on the information before it. It observed that Ryanair would face the same potential enforcement difficulty if it won damages.
The court described the appeal as weak, referring to passages in its earlier judgment that said Ryanair had attempted to relitigate issues it had agreed to, and that the attempt was partly an abuse of process. It also noted that the appeal had been dismissed unanimously. The court said the respondent was an individual and a former Ryanair pilot, while Ryanair was a well-resourced company, and that the respondent’s lawyers were entitled to be paid for successfully defending the appeal.
The court also considered the duration of the proceedings. The blog at the centre of the defamation case was published in 2012, and the case had continued for more than eight years. The court said the redacted report and appeal had added two and a half years. It considered that requiring Ryanair to pay appeal costs immediately would cause no real prejudice to the company, while further delays could burden the respondent and affect his ability to continue with legal representation.
The court therefore refused both the stay on execution of the appeal costs order and the alternative stay covering the inspection order and appeal costs if Ryanair sought leave to appeal. It said that if Ryanair applied to the Supreme Court and leave were granted, Ryanair would have to persuade that court to order a stay. The Court of Appeal made no order for the costs of the stay application, noting the respondent had incurred no additional costs beyond writing an opposing letter.