Lord Woolf stated that he does not approve of satellite litigation, however, since the introduction of the Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) Regulations, there have been a number of cases seeking to challenge and clarify CFAs. It was hoped that the Court of Appeal decision in Callery -v-Gray would bring about some certainty.
The opportunity was missed to give general guidelines and the Court of Appeal Callery -v- Gray went out of their way to emphasise that as far as the level of success fee and insurance premium was concerned, the decision was limited to small fast track cases involving road traffic accidents. Satellite litigation has continued and the challenges to conditional fee agreements have become more technical. The House of Lords has said that the responsibility for monitoring and controlling this developing practice area lies with the Court of Appeal.
