Source: https://disputeresolutionblog.practicallaw.com/knight-and-another-v-knight-and-others-part-36-offer-imposing-costs-conditions-invalid/
Timestamp: 2020-07-14 05:34:50
Document Index: 334157737

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 36', 'art 36', 'art 36', 'art 36', 'art 36', 'art-36']

Knight and another v Knight and others: Part 36 offer imposing costs conditions invalid | Dispute Resolution blog
By letter dated 27 July 2017, the claimants made an offer expressed to be a Part 36 offer, without prejudice save as to costs. The letter, inter alia, offered to pay the sum of £35,000 from the proceeds of sale, which was inclusive “of your client’s costs which we understand to be under £20,000. The offer also excludes any payment by your client of our clients’ costs, which as you know are around £30,000.”
The claimants also referred the court to Procter & Gamble Co v Svenska Cellulosa AB SCA where a claimant’s offer to pay the defendant’s reasonable costs up to the point of acceptance was found to be a valid Part 36 offer.
HHJ Matthews, in finding that he was not free to follow the decision in Procter but was bound by the Court of Appeal decisions, held that no term as to costs should be included in a Part 36 offer. At paragraph 13, he stated:
If the defendants had accepted the offer, they would have received £35,000 and would not have had to pay the claimants’ costs. If it was rejected, they would have had to pay costs on the standard basis. HHJ Matthews found that there was “significant incentive” to accept the offer. At paragraph 28, he stated:
On the claimants’ submission that the defendants had unreasonably refused the offer, the court said, at paragraph 31, that:
Practitioners should also note two comments made obiter in that a pre-issue Part 36 offer was valid even if the format of the future proceedings were unknown, and that a decision that a particular asset is owned beneficially by a particular person is not a “sum of money awarded” or a “monetary award” for the purposes of CPR 36.17.
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