Court Of Appeal Tackles Issues In "No Win, No Fee" Litigation
The Court of Appeal in England, presided over by Lord Woolf, has recently issued a two-part judgment in Callery v Gray and Russell v Pal Pak, concerning success fees payable under conditional fee arrangements and the recovery of "after the event" insurance premiums. The rulings have been eagerly awaited by the legal profession and the insurance industry alike, as to date there has been no clear judicial guidance on these issues.
The success or failure of conditional fee arrangements will have significant impact on the future of product liability litigation in the UK. As legal aid funding for personal injury claims has all but dried up (except for "public interest" cases), these arrangements represent the primary means by which injured claimants (whether individually, or as part of a group action) might be able to bring their claims.
