Stephen Turner v Coupland Cavendish Limited

A stay of an order requiring further information pending a proposed second appeal is exceptional. The applicant must demonstrate injustice or irreversible prejudice of sufficient severity to justify delaying the order. The fact that information cannot literally be erased after disclosure does not, without more, establish irreparable harm.

Where compliance may clarify whether an appeal remains academic, that consideration supports immediate compliance. On costs, the successful party ordinarily receives its costs, but an issues-based outcome and procedural failures may justify a different order. A party succeeding on one application but failing on another in the same hearing may receive no order as to costs for that hearing.

The appellant challenged a decision of Senior Costs Judge Rowley dated 31 October 2023 dismissing an application requiring the respondent to answer a Part 18 request and provide the company number of AJG Limited. The application concerned a £750 payment described as a success fee to an offshore company said to be wholly owned by the respondent’s chief executive.

Permission to appeal was granted on the Part 18 and company-number issues. The appeal was allowed on 26 June 2025. This consequential judgment determined whether compliance should be stayed pending a proposed second appeal, the costs of the appeal and the application below, and the summary assessment of costs.

1. Stay. The court had a parallel jurisdiction with the Court of Appeal to stay its own order because it remained seized of consequential matters. The applicable threshold was stringent. The respondent had to show injustice or irreversible prejudice sufficiently serious to warrant delaying compliance.
2. The respondent’s distinction between information and money did not establish irreparable harm. Compliance with the Part 18 request involved apparently straightforward answers. The fact that compliance could not be undone was not equivalent to harm which could not be remedied on appeal. Nor was the request comparable to mandatory disclosure which might prejudice later proceedings.
3. The reasoning in Edwards/Raubenheimer v Slater & Gordon UK Limited [2022] EWHC 1091 (QB) was highly persuasive. Compliance could clarify whether the proposed appeal was academic. A stay would frustrate that clarification. The application for a stay was therefore refused.
4. Appeal costs. The appellant had succeeded on all grounds for which permission had been granted and was entitled to the costs of the appeal under the general rule in CPR 44.2(2)(a). The procedural failures relied upon by the respondent did not justify depriving the appellant of costs, although they were relevant to the detailed assessment.
5. Costs below. The appellant had succeeded on the Part 18 issue but failed on disclosure. That win-and-loss outcome, together with the late service of the costs statement in breach of CPR 44 PD.9.5(4), justified no order as to costs for the hearing below. The respondent was nevertheless required to repay any costs already paid pursuant to the earlier costs order.
6. The appeal costs were summarily assessed at £14,057.76 inclusive of VAT. Post-appeal costs were assessed at £2,422.08 inclusive of VAT. The total payable was £16,479.84.

• Costs Judge Rowley: On 31 October 2023, dismissed the application concerning the Part 18 request and company number, and subsequently ordered the appellant to pay part of the respondent’s costs.
• High Court (King’s Bench Division): Permission to appeal was granted on specified issues by Sir Stephen Stewart on 21 March 2024. The appeal was allowed on 26 June 2025.
• High Court (King’s Bench Division), consequential judgment: The proposed stay was refused. The appellant received the appeal costs, while there was no order as to costs for the application below.