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	England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Senior Courts Costs Office) Decisions >> Surzur Overseas Ltd v Nicholas Koros & Ors [2001] EWHC 9008 (Costs) (20 July 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Costs/2001/9008.html Cite as: [2001] EWHC 9008 (Costs)

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Surzur Overseas Ltd v Nicholas Koros & Ors
20 July 2001
Mr Justice Forbes sitting with Assessors

The Claimant company, a subsidiary of Société Generale of France, lent substantial sums of money to a group of ship owning companies managed by Blug Flag Navigation Ltd. The principal of Blue Flag was Mr Koros the First Defendant, he also guaranteed the loans to the various shipping companies. By the end of 1996 the companies were in default of their obligations under the loan facilities and in December 1996 the claimant company demanded repayment of some US $54 million from the First Defendant as guarantor. In January 1997 Surzur obtained a mareva injunction over Mr Koros’ assets and issued proceedings against him. In April 1997 judgment was obtained against him in the sum of US $35 million.

The Claimant’s case in these proceedings was that the various Defendants conspired between themselves and with Mr Koros to use unlawful means to cheat and defraud Surzur by concealing Mr Koros’ assets. It was asserted that the Defendants made fraudulent and misleading statements, forged documents, gave false and misleading instructions to solicitors, made dishonest and malicious applications to court and procured and deployed false evidence both in and out of court. The 2^nd, 13^th and 14^th Defendants were all resident in Greece and made applications to set aside the service of the proceedings against them on various grounds. One of these proved successful before Longmore J, namely that the case against them was not reasonably arguable because, as a matter of law, they were immune from suit on the basis of witness immunity. Longmore J found in favour of the Defendants and the Claimant appealed to the Court of Appeal where that decision was reversed. The Defendants’ petition for leave to appeal to the House of Lords was dismissed.

The Defendants were ordered to pay the costs of the appeal and in the court below. The detailed assessment took place before the Master over 2½ days in September 2000. The Defendants appealed the Master’s decision on issues of quantum. They contended that although the Costs Judge reduced the costs claimed by the Claimant he should have made larger reductions. It was accepted that in order to succeed the Defendants had to show that the Costs Judge: "has exceeded the generous ambit within which a reasonable disagreement is possible" per Lord Fraser of Tulybelton in G v G [1985] 1 WLR 647 as applied in Tanfern v Cameron MacDonald [2000] 1 WLR 1311.

The Appellant Defendants were represented by Mr Nicholas Bacon and the Claimant Respondent by Mr Andrew Post. Mr Bacon, realising the difficulty which he had with a quantum only appeal, submitted that the amounts allowed by the Costs Judge were in excess of the widest possible boundary of reasonableness, such that they were amounts which no properly directed Costs Judge would have allowed. He also asserted that in principle the Costs Judge had fallen into error in two material respects:

1. Failing to pay any or any sufficient regard to proportionality as each item of costs was being considered during the assessment; and/or
2. Failing to stand back, having considered the costs on an item by item basis, to then consider the costs in the round taking into account reasonableness and proportionality as a whole.

The appeal was dismissed. The Appellants were unable to show where in the detailed assessment the Master had fallen into error. It was quite clear that the items in the bill had been gone through line by line and considered by the Master. The Judge found that there was no evidence to suggest that the Master had not in fact considered the totality of the allowances which he had made. The court was being asked to second guess the decision of the Master without having heard any of the arguments or seen any of the documents considered by the Master.

With regard to proportionality, the work done in connection with the appeal had been done prior to the commencement of the CPR Costs Rules and the transitional provisions in Part 51 paragraph 18 therefore applied. With regard to the amount allowed in respect of the costs of the detailed assessment (which did take place after 26 April 1999) it was again clear that the items had been gone through line by line and an appropriate allowance made by the Master.

The Respondents costs of the appeal were summarily assessed at £10,000.