The UK High Court of Justice has rejected the argument that a PCO could be granted in private law litigation in circumstances where it was argued that the resolution of a matter was of general public importance.
A PCO is an order made at the outset of litigation which provides certainty to the applicant as to their potential liability for costs. The English authority on PCOs, R (Corner House Research) v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry [2005] 1 WLR 2600 held that “the general purpose of a PCO is to allow a claimant of limited means access to the court in order to advance his case without the fear of an order for substantial costs” and sets out a functional test for when a PCO may be granted. In Eweida v British Airways [2009] EWCA Civ 1025, the Court of Appeal held that “[a] PCO cannot be made in private litigation.”
The claimant applied for a PCO in relation to his claim against Uber London Limited whereby he was seeking to be furnished with a VAT invoice for a cab journey he had booked using the Uber platform. It was his submission that the case was a matter of public importance because of the substantial amount of VAT Uber would be liable to pay should it be decided that the company is liable to account for VAT when users hire a taxi on its platform, and in order to maintain public trust in the administration of VAT. He argued that the Court of Appeal’s ruling in Eweida did not require proceedings to be classified as public law litigation in order for a PCO to be granted, but rather created a requirement that the resolution of a matter be an issue of general public importance before such an order could be made.
In rejecting these arguments, and upholding Eweida the High Court held that PCOs remain unavailable in private law litigation. It was also held that the claimant’s case did not satisfy the test set out in Corner House for the granting of a PCO.
In an interesting post-script, the Claimant has applied for permission to appeal against the decision of the High Court Judge and these proceedings are being ‘crowd funded’ through Crowd Justice the crowdfunding platform for legal cases.
Click here for the full judgement in Jolyon Maugham QC v Uber London Limited [2019] EWHC 391 (Ch)