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17.10 Features of the rules envisaged
on the material parts of the accompanying practice direction,
modified to meet local
concerns. They include rules and practice directions :-
(a)
preserving the parties' right to agree the amount of costs to be paid and to have
such costs dealt with by a consent order;
(b)
defining a summary assessment of costs and distinguishing it from a taxation of
costs;
(c)
empowering the court when disposing of an interlocutory application
to
undertake a summary assessment of costs, or a provisional summary assessment
(discussed further below) or to order a taxation at the end of the proceedings;
(d)
requiring the court to consider and to give preference to the first two of the three
options just mentioned, unless there is good reason not to do so;
(e)
empowering the court on a summary assessment, if appropriate, to allow the
whole of the sums claimed by the receiving party; but requiring it to disallow
such costs as may be disproportionate and unreasonable (while taking into
account and giving substantial weight to the fact, if it be the case, that no
challenge to such costs has been made by the paying party);
Notes
44PD.7. Also helpful is the commentary by the Editors of the White Book at Vol. 1, §48.11 et seq
"General Principles and Case Law Relation to Costs and their Assessment", distilling current
approaches to reasonableness and proportionality.
44PD.7 §13.13(a).
Under the CPR, the general rule is that the court should undertake a summary assessment of costs
where the hearing has lasted not more than one day. The Working Party's view is that in Hong
Kong, the court should have a discretion as to whether to do so even where a hearing lasts for longer.
While in most cases the hearing will involve an interlocutory application, the court should have
power to opt, if practicable, for a summary assessment of the entire costs where the hearing disposes
of the matter entirely.
Cf CPR 44.7.
44PD.7 §13(3)
44PD.7 §13.13. In practice, this is likely to mean that the court would generally not intervene to
disallow unchallenged items unless they are seriously disproportionate and unreasonable: §13.13(b).
Factors relevant to reasonableness and proportionality are discussed in the White Book §48.20.
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