Ruling of the President in respect of applications: (i) by the Respondent that the Applicants pay its costs of the proceedings and for an interim payment on account; and (ii) by the Interveners that the Applicants pay all or a portion of their costs.
In respect of (i), the Tribunal concluded that the Applicants should pay the Respondent's costs of the Proceedings. It concluded that, in place of an interim payment in the sum of 68%, 50% of the costs claimed, in the sum of £258,437 excluding VAT, was appropriate. The costs (along with the costs ordered in favour of the Respondent in the Tribunal's Order of 24 September 2026) were ordered to be the subject of detailed assessment on the standard basis if not agreed.
In respect of (ii), the Tribunal concluded that the particular facts in this case when taken together were such as to warrant an order that the Applicants should pay a proportion of the Interveners' costs, in that the Interveners were not simply an indirectly interested party supporting the position of the Respondent. The Tribunal concluded that it was appropriate for the Interveners to recover 60% of their costs reasonably incurred, but as to the amount of those costs, the Applicants' objection that the costs were disproportionate as to the basis and scope of the Interveners' intervention were considered to be well-founded. As such, the Tribunal concluded that the Interveners will need to justify their position on detailed assessment, stating that the scale of their costs indicated that they adopted a disproportionate approach to the conduct of the Proceedings.
