No letter before action

Phoenix Finance Ltd v Federation International de L’automobile and others (Ch D TLR 27 June)

In ordering the claimant to pay the defendants’ costs on the indemnity basis, the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Andrew Morritt, said that although no pre-action protocol applied to these proceedings, even before the CPR letters before action were required in all but exceptional cases. The whole thrust of the CPR and, in particular, the overriding objective, made it plain that a letter before action was at least as necessary under the new rules as under the old.