A court has heard that Coleen Rooney did not commmit misconduct by “very substantially” understating some of her legal costs during the Wagatha Christie libel trial. Rebekah, the wife of Jamie Vardy, had unsuccessfully attempted to sue Coleen for libel in 2022 following Coleen’s claim that Vardy’s Instagram account was responsible for leaking stories to the press. Lawyers representing both WAGs later returned to court over a dispute about how much Rebekah should pay in legal costs.
In October last year, Rebekah’s barristers claimed to a judge in a hearing that Coleen and her legal representatives had committed “serious misconduct” by understating some of her costs in order to “attack the other party’s costs.” A judge ruled that no misconduct had been committed.
Rebekah later decided to appeal the decision, with Coleen’s legal team opposing the appeal and describing it as “misconceived.” On Thursday, Mr Justice Cavanagh dismissed the appeal. He said: “The appeal must fail on the basis that the judge was entitled to reach the conclusion that he came to.”
But earlier this month, written submissions by Rebekah’s representative, Jamie Carpenter KC, claimed that Coleen had “very substantially understated” her legal costs by around 40 per cent in her budget, which is known as “precedent H,” in 2021.
Carpenter KC said: “At all times throughout the costs budgeting process, Mrs Rooney concealed from Mrs Vardy and the court that the incurred costs in her precedents H were much less than her true incurred costs.” He went on to add: “Although the costs judge was critical of Mrs Rooney’s lawyers for their lack of transparency, he held ‘on balance’ and ‘only just’ that there was no misconduct. It is respectfully submitted that he was wrong to do so.”
Carpenter added that a “proportionate sanction” for the alleged misconduct would be to limit the amount of Coleen’s legal costs up to August 2021, to be paid by Rebekah to £220,955.07. Despite Rebekah strongly denying leaking any information from Coleen’s private Instagram to the press, a ruling by Mrs Justice Steyn in July 2022 ruled Coleen’s accusations to be “substantially true.”
Rebekah was then ordered to pay 90 per cent of Coleen’s legal costs, including a payment of £800,000. A hearing in October last year heard that Coleen’s legal bill totalled £1,833,906.89 – which was said to be three times the “agreed costs budget of £540,779.07. Rebekah’s legal representative argued that this was “disproportionate.”
He claimed that the “understatement” of some of the involved costs was “improper and unreasonable” and “involved knowingly misleading Mrs Vardy and the court,” implying it should be reduced. Meanwhile, Robin Dunne, who was representing Coleen said at a previous hearing that the argument that the amount should be reduced was “misconceived” and that the budget hadn’t been “designed to be an accurate or binding representation” of the overall legal costs.
Senior Costs Judge, Andrew Gordon-Saker found “on balance and, I have to say, only just” that Coleen’s legal team hadn’t committed any wrongdoing and it would not be an “appropriate case” to reduce the fees that Rebekah has to pay. He said that there was a “failure to be transparent” but it was not “sufficiently unreasonable or improper” to constitute misconduct.
On March 31, Mr Carpenter claimed that Coleen had declared “56 per cent of the true level of her incurred costs” in her original budget report which she filed in February 2021, claiming she incurred costs of around £181,000 when she had actually incurred under £3240,000.
He added that in the revised budgets which were submitted in August 2021 that Coleen claimed to have incurred costs of around £221,000 against Rebekah who incurred costs over £469,000. However, he added that Coleen’s full legal bill up to the hearing stated that she had incurred costs of more than £367,000 – around 40 per cent more.
Benjamin Williams KC for Coleen said in a written statement said that her budget had been “properly and correctly completed” and there was no “tenable case” of misconduct. In a statement, he said: “Mrs Rooney’s primary position is that, in this, she and her solicitors were adopting the right approach; but even if this is not correct, it was a reasonable approach. A party is not required to certify what they have actually spent, but rather the ‘costs which it would be reasonable and proportionate for my client to incur in this litigation’.” He went on to add that it would be “unjust and disproportionate” to limit the costs that Rebekah should pay.
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