WITHERS (A FIRM) v. ANTONIA BASILE also known as ANTONIA BASILE WILSON

HCMP 1162/2016

[2018] HKCFI 509

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

MISCELLANEOUS PROCCEEDINGS NO. 1162 OF 2016

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D E C I S I O N

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INTRODUCTION

1.  This is an argument on costs between client and her former solicitors. At this juncture, there are four summonses before this court.

a.   The main summons lies in whether the court should or should not allow the defendant to tax 10 bills of the plaintiff. 

b.   Procedurally, there are 3 summonses taken out by parties (2 from the defendant, and 1 from the plaintiff) to attempt to adduce further evidence before the court. 

BACKGROUND

2.  On 9 May 2016, the plaintiff commenced the present originating summons (“OS”).  The plaintiff was and is a firm of solicitors.  It is the former solicitors of the defendant in her divorce proceedings.  By the OS, the plaintiff asked the court to tax 5 bills having issued to the defendant.

3.  The defendant did not oppose to the OS. However, she went on to issue her own summons asking the court to further allow 10 more bills for taxation under s. 67 of Legal Practitioners Ordinance (Cap.159) (“LPO”) 

4.  The defendant prepared her affidavit to support the summons. She spent some time explaining her complaints, including that the plaintiff failed to enforce the undertaking given by her husband pursuant to the mediation agreement.  In her divorce proceedings, the plaintiff also failed to advise her or advised her wrongly to accept “litigation fund” provided to her by her husband on condition that it would offset against her final ancillary relief at the end.  Her view was supported by her two senior counsel and HH Judge Melloy in her Judgment dated 8 December 2015.  There was also mismanagement of her legal finding by the plaintiff.  It resulted in rushing of MPS applications for litigation funding and immediate demand for costs from her before hearings, or that she would not have legal representations.  All bills were duplicated and excessive.  As all bills were only interim, she should be entitled to taxation of them under s.67 LPO because were special circumstances justifying the court to exercise his discretion to allow them to be taxed.

5.  On 12 July 2016, Master K. Lo dealt with the OS and the summons.  Two separate sets of directions were given.  On the one hand, the 5 bills would be taxed with directions on itemized bill and list of objections to be filed.  On the other, the 10 bills were adjourned for argument with one day reserved. Usual directions for affidavit evidence was given, including that no further affirmation should be filed without prior leave of the court.

6.  On 31 October 2016, two affirmations in opposition were filed, one from Mr. Dearle, and the other from Ms. Ser.  The former was the partner in charge of the defendant’s case at the material times.  He left the defendant in about October 2015.  The latter was and is a partner of the defendant.  She assisted Mr. Dearle in the defendant’s case when he would be out of town.

7.  Ms. Ser explained, inter alia, that the defendant came to the plaintiff for advice in around June 2012.  The divorce proceedings were highly acrimonious contentious and hostile.  The husband was uncooperative.  From September 2014 to October 2015, there were eight substantive hearings, all of which parties were represented by senior counsel. By such time, the husband incurred legal costs of 14 million and the defendant, 8 million.  All allegations against the plaintiff made by the defendant were denied, including mismanagement of legal funding, duplicated and excessive charging, ill advice contrary to the defendant’s interest.  She also said that “interim bills” issued by the plaintiff was meant to be final for the work during the period of time covered by the work.

8.  Mr. Dearle said that he had left the plaintiff. He agreed with Ms. Ser.  There were no special circumstances in the 10 bills. He also referred to the decision of the divorce court having reported in [2016] 2 HKLRD 1 to show that the case had raised important issues.

9.  The defendant filed and served her 2^nd affidavit as reply on 6 February 2017.  She disagreed with Mr. Dearle on a number of matters.  She reiterated that there were excessive and unreasonable billing practices in the plaintiff who duplicated their costs.  The plaintiff was not able to manage her litigation funding properly.  The plaintiff gave her bad advice which was not in her best interest.  The plaintiff only acted in its best interest to secure substantial lump sums for litigation funding to ensure its bills being paid.  It was extremely disappointing for her to realize that the plaintiff had breached her trust in it.  All these also led to serious depletion of matrimonial assets and serious liquidity issues.  She maintained that there were special circumstances justifying the ten bills to be taxed.

10.  So far, the defendant acted in person.  One day later, on 7 February 2017, she started to be legally represented herein.

11.  In the meantime, regarding taxation of the 5 bills, itemized bill and list of objections were filed and, and will be set down for taxation.

12.  As to the 10 bills, on 7 April 2017, parties attended before the listing clerk and obtained the hearing before me on 30 October 2017.

13.  Then, about ten days before the scheduled hearing, on 20 October 2017, the plaintiff issued a summons for leave to adduce another affirmation in opposition.  An assistant solicitor, Ms. Tsao, did the same.  It is only a short affirmation of about four pages but it sought to adduce the 2^nd affidavit of Mr. Dearle with quite some pages of exhibits.  She explained that it was necessary to deal with 17 new allegations mentioned in the affidavit in reply of the defendant.  The plaintiff disagreed with the defendant’s allegations, including that she had not been given certain advice and she was not made aware of certain facts.  Only Mr. Dearle was privy to these and could rebut them all.  Parties had corresponded about it.  On 16 October 2017, the plaintiff wrote to the defendant asking for consent and adjournment of the hearing so that the defendant could also prepare her further affidavit in reply.  No agreement could be reached because the defendant insisted on $200,000 costs of adjournment.  The plaintiff needed the 2^nd affidavit of Mr. Dearle.  The defendant would suffer no real prejudice.  Among others, there was no urgency and onus lied on the defendant to show special circumstances.

14.  In less than one week’s time, on 26 October 2017, the defendant also issued another summons seeking to, inter alia, rely on her 3^rd affidavit in case that this court would allow the plaintiff to adduce further evidence.  She complained that the 2^nd affidavit of Mr. Dearle contained voluminous and confidential materials.  No leave was obtained to use them.  She disagreed with the allegations and presentation of facts by Mr. Dearle.  She went through the affidavit and set out her disagreement.  She also produced a written report by a senior law costs draftsman, Mr. David Law dated 25 October 2017.  He reviewed 64% of the 10 bills.  Out of the sum of about $3 million, he opined that about $1.2 to $1.3 million would be taxed off.

15.  One day later, on 27 October 2017, the defendant took out a further summons asking leave to adduce the affirmation of Albert Lam.  He went through four out of the ten bills and underlined in red a number of items therein which were examples of excessive duplicative and inappropriate items for the court to consider.

16.  Parties appeared before me on 30 October 2017 with the 4 summonses.  Both of them were represented by counsel, Mr. Hughes for the defendant and Mr. Lui for the plaintiff.  Although parties tried to discuss on the preliminary matters, no agreement was reached.

17.  In respect of the 3 late summonses, after hearing from both counsel, to save time and costs, I allowed parties to rely on those evidence on a de bene esse basis.  The argument could not be finished by the date and it was then adjourned part-heard to be restored before me today.

PRELIMINARY MATTERS 

18.  Upon thought, I have decided to dismiss all the 3 late summonses.  After Civil Justice Reform, late or last minute application should not be allowed without good reasons.  Parties had their usual directions for filing and serving of usual affidavit evidence.  It was completed in February 2017.  They went before the listing clerk about 2 months later in April. Both of them however took more than half a year and only issued the summonses shortly before the scheduled hearing.  There is no reason why those evidence should not have been obtained earlier.  The plaintiff is a firm of solicitors.  The defendant has been legally represented since February 2017. In any event, with the first round of affidavit evidence, all key documents regarding the dispute, including in particular the retainer and the ten bills have been placed before the court.  Further round of affidavit evidence including arguments and comments from law costs draftsman or solicitor on the 10 bills does not assist or assist too much this court in deciding the argument.

19.  Hence, they are all dismissed with orders nisi that there be no order as to costs.

THE 10 BILLS

20.  I then move to the substance of the parties’ dispute, i.e. whether the 10 bills should or should not be allowed to go to taxation.

COMMON LAW JURISDICTION?

21.  To start with, parties had a dispute as to whether the defendant was entitled to rely on the common law jurisdiction of this court.  Mr. Hughes said “yes” and Mr. Lui said “no”.  

22.  As a matter of procedure, I decline to allow the defendant to change her basis of application shortly before the hearing. It has always been the defendant’s case that she would rely on s.67 LPO.  As observed earlier, she has been legally represented since February 2017.  However, not until the late filing of her summons on 27 October 2017 exhibiting the affirmation of Albert Lam, the common law jurisdiction of this court has not been mentioned at all.

23.  As a matter of substance, the answer to the dispute can be located in the Court of Appeal case of Oldham Li & Nie, solicitors v. Wong Lin Chooi [2006] 2 HKC. Barma J. said at p.408 to 410 that:

“36. Mr Chua submitted that notwithstanding that no application for taxation had been taken out pursuant to s67(2) of the Ordinance, the question of the reasonableness of the charges by the plaintiff remained matters which the court could and should consider, either under its inherent jurisdiction to order a taxation of costs as between a solicitor and his client, or under the normal jurisdiction of the court to deal with contested claims. Mr Coleman, however, contended that the inherent jurisdiction to order a taxation of costs between solicitor and his client was excluded by implication by the provisions of s 67 of the Ordinance, relying on the decision of the House of Lords in Harrison v Tew [1990] 2 AC 523.

37. Section 67 of the Ordinance provides, so far as material:

(1) On the application, made within 1 month of the delivery of a solicitor’s bill or a foreign lawyer’s bill, of the party chargeable therewith the Court shall, without requiring any sum to be paid into court, order that the bill shall be taxed and that no action shall be commenced thereon until the taxation is completed.

(2) If no such application is made within the period mentioned in subsection (1), then, on the application of the solicitor or the foreign lawyer, or of the party chargeable with the bill, the Court may, upon such terms, if any, as it thinks fit (not being terms as to the costs of the taxation), order

(a) that the bill shall be taxed:

(b) That, until the taxation is completed, no action shall be commenced on the bill, and any action already commenced be stayed:

Provided that —

(i) if 12 months have expired from the delivery of the bill, or if the bill has been paid, or if a verdict has been obtained or a writ of inquiry executed in an action for the recovery of the costs covered thereby, no order shall be made on the application of the party chargeable with the bill except in special circumstances and, if an order is made, it may contain such terms as regards the costs of the taxation as the Court may think fit;

(ii) if the bill has been paid, no order under this subsection shall be made where the application for the order is made after the expiration of 12 months from the date of payment of the bill.

38. In Harrison v Tew, the House of Lords held that the provisions of s 70(4) of the Solicitors Act 1974 (which corresponds to proviso (ii) under s 67(2) of the Ordinance) impliedly excluded the court’s inherent jurisdiction to order such a taxation where 12 months had passed since a bill had been paid. Mr Coleman submitted that the same reasoning applied to the situation arising under proviso (i), so that no taxation could be ordered other than in accordance with that provision in this case. To do otherwise, he said, would enable the defendant to escape the consequences of her delay, which would otherwise have required her to demonstrate the existence of special circumstances justifying an order for taxation. This would circumvent the scheme of s 67, which was to impose a sliding scale by which a client’s right to seek a taxation of a bill delivered to him by his solicitor was progressively circumscribed, depending on the length of delay on his part in seeking taxation.

39. Mr Chua submitted that Harrison v Tew could be distinguished from the present case because it dealt with the situation arising under the equivalent of proviso (ii) under our s 67, and not that arising under the equivalent of proviso (i), which is the applicable proviso here. I can see no basis for drawing such a distinction. Given the structure of the provisions set out above and the language of the section, it seems to me that the court’s inherent jurisdiction is also impliedly circumscribed (although in a different way) by proviso (i).

40. Mr Chua also submitted, relying on Turner & Co v O Palomo SA [2000] 1 WLR 37, that in any event, the court’s usual jurisdiction to decide contested questions in proceedings before it remained intact, notwithstanding the decision in Harrison v Tew. I did not understand Mr Coleman to dispute this rather, he submitted that in such a case, it was for the client or party chargeable to at least identify with some precision the items which were disputed, so that the court could deal with the dispute in an appropriate manner. In this case, although the defendant had, shortly prior to the hearing before the judge below, identified a number of items in the bills concerned in respect of which complaint was made, that would not have justified an order granting effectively a full scale taxation, still less unconditional leave to defend.

41. For my part, I accept Mr Coleman’s submission. While the court may well retain its normal jurisdiction to determine disputed issues, and to do so in the context of disputes as to the reasonableness of the quantum of a solicitor’s bill by referring the matter to a taxing master (who will have greater experience of the taxation process in which such questions commonly arise), it seems to me that if a defendant to a claim by a solicitor on a bill wishes to have the bill formally taxed, it remains necessary for him to take the necessary proceedings under s 67(2) if he is able to do so. Where the dispute is narrower, as it may be in this case, I think that it must be for the client to identify the items in dispute, even if the onus of establishing the reasonableness of the particular charges may still rest with the solicitor. In this case, complaints were made by Mr Chan in relation to some, but far from all, of the charges made. In those circumstances, the appropriate course for the judge below to have taken would have been to have entered judgment for the undisputed amount, giving leave to defend as to the balance, or at best from the defendant’s point of view, to have entered judgment on liability with quantum to be assessed. It would not, however, have been appropriate to give unconditional leave to defend in relation to the entire claim, as sought by the defendant. “

24.  In any event, assuming that this court does have the necessary jurisdiction and discretion, taken the case of the defendant to her highest in the present case (bearing in mind of course that this court is not exercise his jurisdiction in an application for summary judgment by the plaintiff against the defendant), she has failed in identifying the items in dispute. A bare allegation of excessive duplicative or inappropriate items by underlining in red on the bills by her present solicitor does not show good grounds for persuading this court to refer the matter to taxation. 

SECTION 67 LPO

25.  Having decided the above, I then move to see if s.67 LPO will assist the defendant or not in the circumstances. Paragraph 62/App/60 to 62/App/62 of Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2018 at p.1296 set out some helpful basic principles. 

“PART V – SPECIFIC TYPES OF TAXATION (1) : SOLICITOR & OWN CLIENT

General

Orders for taxation — Costs payable to a solicitor by his client may be taxed pursuant to an order of the court. Only the Court of First Instance has power to make order for taxation under the Legal Practitioners Ordinance, Cap.159 (“LPO”) (section 2 of the LPO and Kao Lee & Yip v. High View Properties Ltd [1988] 1 H.K.L.R. 555). Section 67 (1) of the LPO provides that the Court shall, upon the application of the client made within one month of the delivery of the solicitor’s bill, order that the bill be taxed. Under section 67(2) of the LPO, if an application for taxation is made by either the client or the solicitor more than one month from the delivery of the bill, the court may order the bill be taxed upon such terms as it thinks fit. Where 12 months have expired from the delivery of the bill or where the bill has been paid, no order for taxation will be made upon application by the client except in special circumstances (section 67(2)(b)(i) of the LPO). Where 12 months have expired from the delivery of the bill and the bill has been paid. No order for taxation can be made (section 67(2)(b)(ii) of the LPO).

Interim bills — Where the bills delivered are interim bills constituting a series of bills, time for the purpose of section 67(1) and (2) does not begin to run until the last bill in the series or the final account is delivered (Wang Yoeh Ruth v. Chan Victoria [1988] (H.K.C. 687). Interim bills refer to requests for payment for money on account. Final bill is one for the total amount of professional costs and disbursements together with any increase or reduction on the interim bills and giving credit for all payments received as a result of previous interim bills (Cobbett v. Wood [1908] 2 K.B. 420).

Separate bills — It is a question of fact whether there are natural breaks in the work done by a solicitor so that each portion of it can and should be treated as a separate and distinct part in itself, capable of and rightly being charged separately and taxed separately as final bills, or whether the bills are merely statements of account or portions of one entire bill (In Re Romer & Haslam [1893] 2 Q.B.286; Chamberlain v. Bootle & King [1982] 1 W.L.R.1443). In Chin Yuk Lun, Francis v. Lo & Lo (unrep., HCa 1142/2005, [2006] H.K.E.C. 1249), D.H.C.J. To held that a “final” bill is not necessarily the last bill sent to client, and that “final” in the context of a solicitor’s bill implied that the bill would not be changed and that it was self‑contained, citing De Cotiis v. Owen Bird [1998] 51 B.C.L.R. (3d) 272 with approval.

Further, D.H.C.J. To held that in the absence of express consent to send a bill as a “final” bill, the solicitor must prove that the bill was rendered at a natural break in the litigation. A “natural break” refers to either a physical break in the litigation process of such a duration that would entitle the solicitor to say that the matter will be inactive for a substantial period of time, or a break in the nexus between one component matter and another in the litigation.”

INTERIM OR FINAL BILLS?

26.  In the present case, at the hearing before me, there was no more argument on whether the 10 bills are interim or final one. I take it as a rightful concession on the part of counsel. With the evidence before me, including in particular the written retainer (containing terms to the effect that interim bills will be final for the relevant time period and are to be settled separately), on balance, I would have decided that the 10 bills issued by the plaintiff are separate and final in its nature.

TAXATION OF 4 BILLS REFUSED – BILLS PAID AND DELIVERED OVER 12 MONTHS

27.  Hence, for the 1st 4 bills (all of them were delivered and paid over 12 months), they fall under s.67(2)(b)(ii) LPO and as such no order for taxation can be made.  They shall not be taxed by this court.

TAXATION OF 6 BILLS ALLOWED – SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES ESTABLISHED

28.  As to the remaining 6 bills (all of them were paid but delivered less than 12 months), they fall under s.67(2)(b)(i) LPO. The crux then lies in whether the plaintiff can establish special circumstances.  The law on the topic is clear. Briefly, as stated in paragraph 62/App/63 of Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2018 at p.1296

“Special circumstances — There is no hard and fast rule as to what constitutes special circumstances as justifying taxation of a bill which has been paid or which has been delivered for more than 12 months. Misconduct or fraud on the part of the solicitors, or pressure accompanied by overcharge or overcharges so gross as to amount to fraud have been accepted as special circumstances (In Re Boycott (1885) 29 Ch.571). Bills which are redolent with overcharges and without sufficient explanation for the amounts claimed may also give rise to special circumstances (Wang Yoeh Yu Ruth v. Chan Victoria (above)).”

29.  I further remind myself of the principles relating to solicitor and own client taxation, as distinguished from the party and party one. Paragraph 62/App/10 of Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2018 at p.1286 states that:

“Solicitor and own client basis (O.62 r.29) — On the taxation of solicitor’s bill to his own client (except a bill to be paid out of funds provided pursuant to section 27 of the Legal Aid Ordinance, or a bill with respect to non‑contentious business) all costs shall be allowed except insofar as they are of an unreasonable amount or have been unreasonably incurred. For the purposes of r.29(1), all costs incurred with the express or implied approval of the client shall, subject to r.29(3), be conclusively presumed to have been reasonably incurred and, where the amount thereof has been expressly or impliedly approved by the client, to have reasonable in amount (r.29(2)). For the purposes of r.29(1), any cost which in the circumstances of the case are of an unusual nature and such that they would not be allowed on a taxation of costs in a case to which r.28(2) applies, shall, unless the solicitor expressly informed his client before they were incurred that they might not be so allowed, be presumed, until the contrary is shown, to have been unreasonably incurred (r.29(3)).

It is almost wrong to order costs inter partes to be paid on the solicitor and own client basis (EMI Records Ltd. v. Ian Cameron Wallace Ltd & Another [1892] 2 All E.R 980 at991).This is because on a taxation inter partes on the solicitor and own client basis the paying party will be required to pay not only a reasonable amount for costs reasonably incurred but any costs, however unreasonable they are, which the receiving party would be obliged to pay to his own solicitor (Cohen v. Cohen [1905] 2 Ch. 137; Re Kingsley Deceased, The times, June 17, 1978).”

30.  With these in mind, I take the view that the defendant has satisfied with me to establish special circumstances in the said 6 bills. I do not propose to go through each and every argument raised by the parties. It suffices to set out the followings.  

(a)  The bills come from a highly contentious matrimonial dispute involving substantial amount of assets. Both parties engaged city firms with senior counsel.

(b)  The “payment” of the plaintiff’s bills by the plaintiff is not usual one in solicitor and own client case. In the present situation, most of the plaintiff’s fees were not “paid” by the defendant from her own pocket. Instead, they came from the litigation fund provided by the husband of the defendant and were deducted from time to time as bills were presented.  

(c)  The defendant said that the fees were duplicated and excessive. The defendant also said that pressure was brought to her to provide costs on account. The plaintiff denied them and said that the defendant made no complaint whatsoever. Upon reviewing the 6 bills and other evidence before me, including in particular the following contemporaneous documents recording the complaints of the defendant, on balance, I prefer the case of the defendant.

“ - I would like to know what the unbilled costs are for the work done so far done for the month of August.

- I would like a breakdown to be provided for the legal costs incurred for the Main Pointer as per your last invoice for July and a copy of any invoice/correspondence relating to these costs…

- I would like to discuss arranging a meeting (non-chargeable) with you next week to discuss my legal costs to date and how they are to be managed from now as I cannot and do not want to sustain the current level of expenditure incurred especially in the last few months...”

(e-mail dated 18 August 2015 from the defendant to the plaintiff)

“I am disappointed that I was not sent a copy of this letter and the consent summons to approve before it was sent out as I have an issue to discuss with you first regarding future funding for legal fees, which I assumed we would cover in our meeting regarding legal costs. As you have now sent out a consent summons, which I have a problem with in regard to its wording, it is too late to address the concerns I have had about the unfairness of the basis of how I am being provided funding for legal fees and restricts the options that I was looking at getting these concerns addressed by the court.

I will discuss this further with you when I see you tomorrow…”

(e-mail dated 24 August 2015 from the defendant to the plaintiff)

“I would just like to note that I still don’t have a revised August invoice and I have yet to receive an invoice for September…

I have had considerable concerns over the management of my legal expenses and money held on account in the past and I have had a long discussion with Marcus about this at the end of August when I got back from my summer holidays and expressed my concern as to how late my invoices were being produced (usually 3 weeks into the following month) and not getting updates on balances of funds left on account. I also expressed my concern … that I did not want to find myself in a financial situation as what happened at the beginning of the year where I was made to cover the shortfall of funds required to pay existing legal bills from my existing capital. As a consequence of what happened earlier this year, I also have had to hold back on paying off credit cards in order to ensure I have more cash on hand…”

(e-mail dated 6 October 2015 from the defendant to the plaintiff)

(d)   Last but not least, one does not forget the comment made by Judge Lok in the case of Ding Xiaohong & others v. King & Wood (a firm) [2013] 2 HKC,

“… as the court will tax the 5^th Bill in any event, it would be grossly unfair to the plaintiffs if, after the court finds that there is any instance of overcharging or false charging for the items in the 5^th Bill, the court is not allowed to investigate the propriety of the fees charged in the earlier bills… these considerations amount to special circumstances…”

In the present case, 5 bills have already agreed by parties for a taxation earlier.

31.  The defendant spent quite some time trying to establish that the plaintiff had not done their job properly. The plaintiff gave her wrong advice, including agreeing to the offset of a total of $5 million provided by her husband by way of litigation funding. The plaintiff strongly denied any of them. As I discussed these matters with both counsel at the hearing, all these disputes could not be decided at the hearing before me and by way of affidavit evidence. They were not to be determined at the taxation herein, even if taxation would be ordered by the court. Parties would have to resolve them by other appropriate procedures elsewhere.

COSTS

32.  I have not had the benefit of arguments from parties as to the question of costs. It of course follows event unless there are circumstances to the contrary. In our present case, the plaintiff wins in the argument on common law jurisdiction of the court and successfully defends for taxation of 4 bills. On the other hand, the defendant has persuaded me to refer 6 bills for taxation. She only dropped her argument that all bills were interim at the hearings before me. The time and costs spent by both parties are more or less the same. I therefore see fit to make an order nisi of no order as to costs.  

ORDERS

33.  In the end, I will make the following orders.

(a)   The summons filed by the plaintiff on 20 October 2017 is dismissed. There be an order nisi of no order as to costs.

(b)   The summons filed by the defendant on 26 October 2017 is dismissed. There be an order nisi of no order as to costs.

(c)   The summons filed by the defendant on 27 October 2017 is dismissed. There be an order nisi of no order as to costs.

(d)   The application for taxation of the following 4 bills, no.5012038 dated 31 January 2015, no.5012332 dated 28 February 2015, no.5012530 dated 1 April 2015 and no.5012835 dated 30 April 2015 are dismissed. 

(e)   The application for taxation of the following 6 bills, no.5013154 dated 31 May 2015, no.5013559 dated 1 July 2015, no.5013838 dated 31 July 2015, no.5014038 dated 31 August 2015, no.5014186 dated 1 October 2015 and no.5014875 dated 18 December 2015 (collectively called “the 6 bills”) are allowed. They are referred to the taxing master for taxation.

(f)   For the purpose of taxation of the 6 bills, the plaintiff do file an serve itemised bills of costs within 35 days from the date hereof. The defendant do also file and serve her list of objections within 60 days thereafter in the form as stated in PD14.3.

(g)   The 6 bills be referred to the taxing master for taxation and he or she do tax the costs of the reference and certify what shall be found due to and from either party in respect of them and the costs of reference to be charged (if payable) according to the event of taxation pursuant to section 67 of the Legal Practitioners Ordinance (Cap.159).

(h)   Regarding the summons filed by the defendant on 30 June 2017, there be an order nisi of no order as to costs.