Legal News
Justice Secretary announces fee reductions in RTA portals (28 February 2013)
Date: 28/02/2013
The announcement of reduction in Road Traffic Accident (RTA) portal fees from £1,200 to £500 from the end of April has put claimant personal injury lawyers into a fix.
The Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has confirmed the news and said that the fee for handling claims worth £10,000 to £25,000, which will enter the portal “from the end of July”, would be £800.
For employers and public liability cases which are to enter the portal at the same time the fees is set at £900 for cases worth up to £10,000 and £1,600 for cases worth up to £25,000.
The fee cuts had been challenged as a judicial review at the High Court by APIL and MASS and the hearing for it is scheduled on Friday.
Grayling said that in “exceptional circumstances”, where cases were in the £10,001 to £25,000 bracket, the cost of a barrister or specialist solicitor’s advice on quantum should be recovered as a disbursement, in the same way as experts’ reports.
The justice secretary also said that for “claims arising out of employers’ liability disease cases” which fell outside the protocol, the existing costs regime should continue.
Justice Minister Helen Grant had previously suggested just before Christmas that mesothelioma claims should be handled by a portal.
Last year in November Grant had proposed for cases falling outside the protocol to be calculated according to a matrix of fixed recoverable costs, based on the table recommended by Lord Justice Jackson in 2009 which proposed an increased rate taking into account of inflation but reduced to by an amount so as to accommodate the forthcoming ban on referral fees.
Under the matrix, fees for non-portal RTA claims worth £1,000 to £5,000, which settled before issue, would be the greater of £550 or £100 plus 20 per cent of damages.
For similar claims worth £5,000 to £10,000, it would be £1,100 plus 15 per cent of damages.
Fees for employer’s and public liability cases worth £1,000 to £5,000 which left the portal and settled before issue would be £950 plus 17.5 per cent of damages in both cases.
This would rise to £1,855 plus 12.5 per cent of damages for employer’s liability cases or 10 per cent of damages for public liability.
Grayling said the new fixed costs regime will be implemented at the same time as extension to the portal at the end of July.