Gomes v AMG Financial Management Limited: court orders 75% costs after summary dismissal

The Business and Property Courts have handed down a costs judgement following the summary dismissal of a claim brought against, among others, a solicitor defendant, addressing the interaction between issue-based percentage reductions and the threshold for indemnity costs.

The judgement, handed down remotely on 11 September 2026 by Stuart Ritchie KC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, followed the main judgement in the case, reported at [2026] EWHC 2284 (Comm), in which the claim brought by Jacqueline Frances Gomes and Vasco de Oliveira Gomes was summarily disposed of. The parties agreed the terms of the resulting order save for costs, which the judge determined on the papers based on written submissions.

It was common ground that the third defendant, Marco Mandelli, was the overall winner and entitled to a substantial costs order. The dispute centred on whether his costs should be reduced to reflect the failure of separate abuse of process and failure to comply applications, whether costs should be assessed on the standard or indemnity basis, and the appropriate payment on account.

Counsel for Mr Mandelli, Mark Warwick KC, argued that the case turned on a single issue, namely whether the claim should survive challenge, and that no percentage reduction was warranted given Mr Mandelli's overall success. The judge rejected that characterisation, applying the two-stage approach endorsed in Straker v Tudor Rose (a firm) [2007] EWCA Civ 368, and found that the abuse of process and failure to comply applications were distinct in their factual and legal basis, had substantially increased costs, and had failed. He also rejected the submission that those applications had succeeded in substance but merely attracted no additional sanction, noting that no alternative sanction had in fact been pursued once the claim was summarily disposed of on other grounds.

The judgement distinguished two periods of the litigation, a period in which Mr Mandelli, himself a solicitor, acted as a litigant in person and could recover costs under CPR 46.5, and a later period during which he was represented by Judge Sykes Frixou. The judge awarded 100 per cent of costs for the earlier period and 75 per cent for the represented period, describing the latter as a broad brush assessment that gave weight to the primacy of the summary judgment application while discounting for the costs generated by the unsuccessful applications.

On the basis of assessment, the judge declined to order indemnity costs, drawing on Nicklin J's recent summary of principle in Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE & Others v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2026] EWHC 2207 (KB). He accepted that the threshold for indemnity costs is a high one and that summary disposal of a claim does not of itself demonstrate the degree of unreasonableness required, citing Lewison J's observation in EasyAir Limited v Opal Telecom [2009] EWHC 779 that giving summary judgment against a hopeless case is the norm rather than an exception warranting indemnity costs. He also distinguished the case from Lawrence itself, which had involved an eleven week trial and wide ranging allegations, whereas this claim was disposed of at a comparatively early stage.

On payment on account, the judge ordered £19,400, representing 75 per cent of the assessed costs figure, payable within the default 14 day period under CPR 44.7. Having heard submissions on the claimants' financial position, he found no basis to depart from that timetable, noting the absence of any alternative schedule the claimants felt able to propose.