Turner v Coupland Cavendish: The Limits of the Cash Account
Written by Nick McDonnell, Director and Costs Lawyer, Kain Knight Manchester.
The Court of Appeal reels in Part 18 fishing expeditions that cast the net too wide
Kain Knight has secured yet another success in the Court of Appeal, with the Appellant succeeding in Turner v Coupland Cavendish Ltd. The judgment provides important guidance on the scope of solicitor-client assessments under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974, the proper function of the cash account and the use of Part 18 Requests for Further Information within those proceedings.
The judgment also expressly holds that the approach adopted in Edwards/Raubenheimer was wrong and that Costs Judge Rowley’s original decision in that case was correct.
For those practising in solicitor-client costs, there is a great deal in this judgment to digest. For us at Kain Knight, there is also plenty to celebrate.
How did we get here?
The underlying dispute arose from a modest personal injury claim following a road traffic accident. Mr Turner instructed Coupland Cavendish Limited, trading as Gowing Law, and the claim ultimately settled with damages of £3,000.
Gowing Law subsequently delivered a statutory bill. Mr Turner commenced proceedings under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974 seeking an assessment of the firm’s profit costs and success fee.
An ATE insurance premium of £245 also appeared in the cash account. Mr Turner sought information concerning the ATE arrangements, including whether Gowing Law or others had received commission or some other financial benefit from the insurer. An 18-question Request for Further Information under CPR Part 18 was relied upon for that purpose.
The argument was that the cash account was “in dispute” and that questions concerning possible undisclosed commission could therefore be investigated within the section 70 proceedings.
The potential commission itself was tiny. The Court of Appeal observed that, even if a commission had been paid, the amount potentially in dispute was unlikely to exceed around £25. Against that background, Andrews LJ observed that the costs of resolving the issues “far outweigh” any possible benefit to the former client.
The SCCO
The issue came before Costs Judge Rowley in September 2023.
There were both procedural and substantive difficulties with the application. No formal application had been made for an order requiring replies and, remarkably, the Part 18 Request itself had not been placed before the Costs Judge.
There was also a wider concern.
The Costs Judge identified a developing practice of stating that the cash account was “in dispute” as a means of interrogating the circumstances in which ATE insurance had been obtained. In Turner, there was no evidence that Gowing Law had received any commission.
He refused to order answers to the Request, concluding that the client had no entitlement to wide-ranging access to the solicitor’s records in the absence of a positive case supporting the questions being asked.
That decision was appealed.
The first appeal
The first appeal was heard by Sweeting J in October 2024, with judgment eventually handed down in June 2025.
Two issues had been permitted to proceed: the refusal to order replies to the Part 18 Request and a separate issue concerning information identifying AJG Ltd, the Gibraltar company which had received the success fee.
Sweeting J allowed the appeal.
On Part 18, he concluded that there was no additional evidential threshold beyond the requirement that the information sought relate to a matter in dispute in the proceedings. He considered that queries concerning possible commission could place the cash account in dispute and directed that the Request be answered in its entirety.
Gowing Law appealed again.
The Court of Appeal
The second appeal was heard by Lewison LJ, Phillips LJ and Andrews LJ, sitting with Costs Judge Whalan as assessor.
The Court unanimously allowed Gowing Law’s appeal.
At the heart of Andrews LJ’s judgment is a fundamental distinction between assessing a solicitor’s bill and taking an account between solicitor and client.
A section 70 assessment is concerned with the former.
Its purpose is to determine the proper amount chargeable for the solicitor’s services. It is not a general jurisdiction through which every financial issue arising from the solicitor-client relationship can be investigated.
Indeed, the Court held that Costs Judge Rowley’s original refusal to make the Part 18 order on procedural grounds was an “unimpeachable case management decision“, and that the first appeal should have been dismissed on that basis.
What is the cash account actually for?
The judgment provides particularly important guidance about the cash account.
The cash account is separate from the solicitor’s bill. Within a section 70 assessment, its function is to enable the Costs Judge, after assessing the bill, to establish the balance ultimately due to or by the solicitor. That includes identifying payments already made towards the bill and sums received for the client which may properly be appropriated towards it.
It does not confer a wider jurisdiction to investigate every debit or credit appearing — or allegedly missing — from the account.
As the Court makes clear, the Costs Judge is not taking a general account between solicitor and client. If the client believes that the solicitor has failed fully to account to them, “the remedy lies elsewhere.”
Part 18 – and fishing expeditions
The Court agreed with Sweeting J that Part 18 does not carry the same evidential threshold as an application for specific disclosure. But there must still be a genuine “matter in dispute in the proceedings“.
As Andrews LJ explained, a dispute does not exist simply because somebody says that it does.
Part 18 can legitimately be used within a section 70 assessment. The Court gives examples such as asking why so much time was spent on a particular task or why work was undertaken by a partner rather than somebody more junior.
What Part 18 cannot do is turn a Solicitors Act assessment into a fishing expedition designed to discover whether the client might have some separate claim outside the jurisdiction of the Costs Judge.
The questions about possible ATE commissions were not matters which the Costs Judge was required to determine in assessing the bill. There was therefore no power to order that they be answered.
Edwards/Raubenheimer – wrongly decided
One of the most significant parts of the judgment concerns Edwards/Raubenheimer.
In that case, Ritchie J had overturned Costs Judge Rowley’s refusal to order answers to Part 18 questions concerning possible ATE commissions. His approach contemplated the questions being answered and the Costs Judge then considering how any resulting dispute should be dealt with.
Andrews LJ acknowledged the practical attraction of that solution. Separate proceedings over a very small commission might plainly be disproportionate.
But proportionality cannot create jurisdiction.
The Court held that there was no justification for ordering answers about matters extraneous to the assessment so that a Costs Judge could subsequently decide how or where a dispute about them should be determined.
The conclusion at paragraph 93 is particularly significant. The Court held that Edwards/Raubenheimer was wrongly decided and, because the relevant earlier authority of Jones v James had not been placed before Ritchie J, was decided per incuriam.
Andrews LJ concluded:
“The Costs Judge’s decision in Edwards/Raubenheimer was right, for the reasons that he gave.”
That is a substantial clarification of the law.
The wider context
The Court also makes some unusually forthright observations about the economics of this type of litigation.
Drawing upon Belsner, Andrews LJ observed that Mr Turner had no real or economic interest in pursuing litigation over such a small potential recovery and said that “the only people who stand to gain from it are those who have made an industry out of challenging solicitors’ costs.“
The judgment also recalls the description in Burstein of satellite costs litigation as a “growth industry” and “a blot on the civil justice system“.
Significantly, the Court expressly commended Costs Judge Rowley for his approach to the proceedings.
Belsner, Brown, Bendriss – and now Turner
There is particular significance in this judgment for Kain Knight.
The Court’s reasoning refers to Belsner v CAM Legal Services Ltd, Brown v JMW Solicitors LLP and Bendriss v Nicholson Jones Suttons Solicitors.
Kain Knight acted for the successful parties in all three cases!
Brown is particularly relevant. There, Costs Judge Rowley had distinguished Edwards and refused to order answers to Part 18 requests concerning alleged commissions where there was no evidence that any commission had been received.
Turner now joins Belsner, Brown and Bendriss as another significant solicitor-client costs decision in which Kain Knight has acted for the successful party.
Back where we started – but with much greater clairty
There is a certain symmetry to the outcome.
Costs Judge Rowley refused the application in 2023. The High Court overturned him. The Court of Appeal has now not only restored the result, but described his procedural decision as “unimpeachable“, commended his approach and held that his decision in Edwards/Raubenheimer had also been right.
The wider principles are now much clearer.
A section 70 assessment is an assessment of the solicitor’s bill, not a general accounting exercise. The cash account assists in calculating the balance following that assessment; it does not create jurisdiction to investigate unrelated financial dealings. Part 18 remains available where information genuinely relates to something the Costs Judge must determine, but it cannot be used as a fishing expedition to discover other potential claims.
The Court was equally clear that this does not diminish a solicitor’s fiduciary obligations. A solicitor asked whether they received a commission ought to answer the question. But that obligation does not expand the statutory jurisdiction of a Costs Judge.
Coupland Cavendish was represented in the Court of Appeal by Erica Bedford and Thomas Mason of Hailsham Chambers, instructed by Kain Knight (North & Midlands) Ltd.
It has been a long journey through the SCCO, the High Court and finally the Court of Appeal.
For Coupland Cavendish, the legal team and all of us at Kain Knight, there is plenty to celebrate.
For the wider costs profession, however, the lasting significance of Turner is perhaps simpler: we now have authoritative Court of Appeal guidance on what belongs within a Solicitors Act assessment — and what does not.
