CFAs fail for formal defects

1. Failure to state amount payable or that advice given Woods v Chaleff and others SCCO 30 April

Conditional Fee Agreements Regulation 3(d) provides that a CFA must state the amount payable or the method to be used to calculate it. Regulation 4(1) requires the agreement to state, immediately before it was entered into, that the legal representative had drawn the client’s attention to the matters specified in Regulation 4(2) (any liability for solicitor and client costs; right to assessment; BTE; alternative methods of funding and ATE). Because the CFA was deficient in both these respects it was unenforceable. It could not be saved by CPR 3.9 which is restricted to relief from sanctions imposed by ‘any rule, practice direction or court order’.