Rooney lawyers committed ‘serious misconduct’ in Vardy legal battle, court told
Rebekah Vardy’s lawyers claim the amount she must pay in legal costs should be reduced.
Coleen Rooney’s lawyers committed misconduct by “very substantially” understating some of her legal costs for her high-profile Wagatha Christie legal battle with Rebekah Vardy, the High Court has been told.
Mrs Vardy unsuccessfully sued Mrs Rooney for libel in 2022, and lawyers for the pair returned to court for a further dispute over how much Mrs Vardy should pay in legal costs as a result.
At a hearing in October last year, Mrs Vardy’s barristers told a costs judge that Mrs Rooney and her legal team committed “serious misconduct” by understating some of her costs to “attack the other party’s costs”.
A judge found no misconduct had been committed, and Mrs Vardy is now appealing against the decision.
Mrs Rooney is opposing the appeal, with her lawyers describing it as “misconceived”.
In written submissions for a hearing on Monday, Jamie Carpenter KC, for Mrs Vardy, said Mrs Rooney “very substantially understated” her legal costs by around 40% in her budget, known as a “precedent H”, in 2021.
He said: “At all times throughout the costs budgeting process, Mrs Rooney concealed from Mrs Vardy and the court that the incurred costs in her precedents H were much less than her true incurred costs.”
He continued: “Although the costs judge was critical of Mrs Rooney’s lawyers for their lack of transparency, he held ‘on balance’ and ‘only just’ that there was no misconduct. It is respectfully submitted that he was wrong to do so.”
Mr Carpenter said a “proportionate sanction” for the alleged misconduct would be to limit the amount of Mrs Rooney’s legal costs up to August 2021 to be paid by Mrs Vardy to £220,955.07.
In 2019, Mrs Rooney, the wife of former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, accused Mrs Vardy of leaking her private information to the press on social media, which Mrs Justice Steyn found in July 2022 was “substantially true”.
The judge later ordered Mrs Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, to pay 90% of Mrs Rooney’s costs, including an initial payment of £800,000.
The hearing in October was told that Mrs Rooney’s claimed legal bill – £1,833,906.89 – was more than three times her “agreed costs budget of £540,779.07”, which Mr Carpenter said was “disproportionate”.
He continued that the earlier “understatement” of some costs was “improper and unreasonable” and “involved knowingly misleading Mrs Vardy and the court”, meaning it should be reduced.
Robin Dunne, representing Mrs Rooney at the previous hearing, said the argument that the amount owed should be reduced was “misconceived” and that the budget was “not designed to be an accurate or binding representation” of her overall legal costs.
Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker found “on balance and, I have to say, only just” that Mrs Rooney’s legal team had not committed wrongdoing, and therefore it was “not an appropriate case” to reduce the amount of money Mrs Vardy should pay.
He said that while there was a “failure to be transparent”, it was not “sufficiently unreasonable or improper” to constitute misconduct.
On Monday, Mr Carpenter claimed that Mrs Rooney “declared 56% of the true level of her incurred costs” in her original budget, submitted in February 2021, which said she had incurred costs of around £181,000 when she had actually incurred just under £324,000.
He continued that in revised budgets, submitted for a preliminary hearing in August 2021, Mrs Rooney claimed to have incurred costs of around £221,000, against Mrs Vardy’s incurred costs of just over £469,000.
But Mr Carpenter said Mrs Rooney’s full legal bill up to the hearing showed she had incurred costs of more than £367,000, around 40% more.
In his written submissions, Benjamin Williams KC, for Mrs Rooney, said her budget was “properly and correctly completed” and there was “no tenable case” of misconduct.
He said: “Mrs Rooney’s primary position is that, in this, she and her solicitors were adopting the right approach; but even if this is not correct, it was a reasonable approach.”
He continued: “A party is not required to certify what they have actually spent, but rather the ‘costs which it would be reasonable and proportionate for my client to incur in this litigation’.”
He added it would be “unjust and disproportionate” to limit the amount Mrs Vardy should pay.
At the end of the hearing on Monday, Mr Justice Cavanagh and acting Senior Costs Judge Jason Rowley said they would give their decision at a later date.
