Consultation Paper On The Expenses Of Civil Litigation Bill Published

On Friday 30 January 2015, the Scottish Ministers published a consultation paper setting out their plans for draft legislation which will implement the recommendations of the Review of Expenses and Funding of Civil Litigation in Scotland (the 'Taylor Review').

Background

The report of the Taylor Review was published on 11 September 2013 and made 85 recommendations for extensive changes to the system of expenses and funding of civil litigation in Scotland. The Scottish Government has previously accepted all of the report's recommendations in principle.

Access to Justice

The consultation paper's proposals aim to improve access to justice by making judicial expenses more predictable, increasing funding options for those raising civil actions, and by creating an 'equality of arms' between both parties to a personal injury action.

Launching the consultation, Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs Paul Wheelhouse said:

"The Scottish Government agrees that the current situation where the unpredictability of costs represents a barrier to justice is not acceptable. I am convinced that the proposals in our consultation will go a long way to making the Scottish civil litigation system much more accessible to the people of Scotland."

The Proposals

The focus of the consultation paper is Sheriff Principal Taylor's recommendations for Damages Based Agreements (DBA's), Speculative Fee Agreements (SFA's) and Qualified One-way Costs Shifting ('QOCS').

The Scottish Government's proposals include:

Introducing caps on SFAs - i.e. "no win, no fee" agreements with an additional "success fee" payable; Allowing DBA's, under which the solicitor's fee is calculated as a percentage of the sum awarded, to be similarly capped; Introducing a system of QOCS for personal injury cases, providing a degree of...