Stay of Enforcement and the Recovery of Costs

In Complete Ceiling and Partitioning Systems Ltd v DE1 Ltd [2024] EWHC 2800 (TCC), Her Honour Judge Sarah Watson held that the claimant was not entitled to recover its costs in respect of its application to enforce the decision of an adjudicator as a result of its failure to co-operate with the defendant's request for information about its financial standing as part of the defendant's application to stay enforcement of the decision of the adjudicator. While accepting that the claimant was not under a general duty to provide financial information to the defendant, the facts of this case were exceptional in that the claimant's latest financial accounts showed "serious balance sheet insolvency" such that, in the absence of an explanation from the claimant, the defendant's application for a stay appeared likely to succeed. In these circumstances, the Overriding Objective in the Civil Procedure Rules required that the claimant co-operate with the defendant and not adopt an intransigent approach of refusing to provide information. This refusal was held not to be consistent with the court's expectations of the way in which litigation should be conducted. In the circumstances, Judge Watson made no order for costs so that each party was responsible for its own costs.