The Court of Appeal has awarded Ireland and the Attorney General their costs of an appeal and a later motion brought by Scotchstone Capital Fund Ltd and Piotr Skoczylas. The costs are to be adjudicated if the parties cannot agree. The court refused to measure them itself and declined to stay payment pending separate proceedings challenging the constitutionality of the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010.
The costs ruling, delivered on 14 November 2023, followed the court’s January 2022 dismissal of the appellants’ appeal against a High Court decision striking out their proceedings as frivolous, vexatious or bound to fail. The appeal judgment described the claim as a Köbler case, concerning alleged State liability for a court’s breach of European Union law.
The appellants asked the court to award them costs or make no costs order. They relied on settlement correspondence and argued, among other things, that the case was unprecedented and raised matters of public importance. The court found the settlement proposals did not displace the respondents’ presumptive entitlement to costs. It also concluded that, although this was the first Köbler case before the courts in Ireland, the appeal applied settled principles and did not raise the weighty public issues that had justified a departure from the usual costs rule in other cases.
The court also ordered the appellants to pay the costs of a motion filed by Mr Skoczylas on 16 March 2022. That motion sought to vary or set aside the appeal judgment, correct alleged errors and, alternatively, stay the proceedings pending the separate constitutional challenge. The court had refused the motion in December 2022. It rejected the argument that holding an oral hearing on the motion changed the costs position: all the relief sought had been refused.
The respondents asked the court to set a lump sum for costs. The court declined, citing the contested appeal, lengthy submissions and hearing, and subsequent litigation. It said it lacked material to assess whether the case was suitable for measured costs, and ordered that costs instead be adjudicated if agreement could not be reached.
The court refused a stay pending the constitutional proceedings, which had been heard in the High Court but had no judgment date indicated in the ruling. It did, however, stay the costs orders for 21 days from perfection of the order to allow an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. If such proceedings are brought, the stay continues until they are determined or the Supreme Court orders otherwise.
Finally, the court corrected two factual passages in its earlier appeal judgment: an application for a stay had in fact been made to the High Court. It directed that the corrected judgment replace the version on the court website, and declined to make the broader amendments sought by Mr Skoczylas.