Part 36 Offers - Optical Express v Associated Newspapers

Case Alert - [2017] EWHC 2707 (QB)

Court decides not to order the usual costs consequences for ace pting a Part 36 offer outside the relevant period.

Where a Part 36 offer is accepted after the end of the relevant period, the defendant will pay the claimant's costs of the proceedings up to the expiry date of the relevant period and the offeree will pay the offeror's costs from the expiry date of the relevant period to the date of acceptance (unless the court orders otherwise because it considers those costs consequences to be unjust).

In this case, the claimant accepted the defendant's Part 36 offer after the end of the relevant period and the defendant argued...