Rising court costs may prevent businesses from making claims

Rising court costs may be preventing small and medium sized businesses from making personal injury compensation claims when they encounter issues, one expert consultancy firm recently reported.

Research findings by John Kennedy revealed that more than 50 per cent of firm owners reported that cost was the key factor preventing them from making business-related accident claims.  However, 50 per cent of respondents stated that they had no idea that commercial litigation could be subject to no win no fee lawyers willing to work under conditional fee agreements, John Kennedy also found.

Such fee arrangements is a deal between clients and solicitors in which risk is shared between the two of them, as the legal professional  will agree to either take their fees from the losing side in the event that the claimant prevails.  However, solicitors need to carry out risk assessments, which can cost anywhere in the range of £750 to £2,000, in addition to other court costs for making claims.

City of London marketing and sales firm G4h’s company secretary, Colin Spiller, reported that he was prepared to write off ‘tens of thousands’ of pound s former client owned after failing to pay commission on several deals.  However, he used John Kennedy to help him secure a conditional fee arrangement with a law firm, leading the client to settle, with Mr Spiller noting that while the settlement did not completely cover the costs of the law firm, they did split them down the middle with G4h.

Industry experts say that if more companies would avail themselves of conditional fee agreements, the spectre of looming failure due to the sluggish economy could be eased quite a bit.

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