EQUILLORE - ARTICLE - 20 April 2008

Taxation Services

Attorneys are well familiar with the frustrations of having to get a bill of costs taxed.

Despite attempts by various Judge Presidents to expedite the taxing roll through appointment of additional taxing masters and increased taxing hours, it remains impossible to obtain a taxing date within a few weeks of receiving a final court order.

More attorneys are looking to their costs consultants to settle their clients’ bills of costs without the cumbersome necessity of having the bill taxed. But even then the problem lies in eventually having to enter the taxing queue in order to have the allocatur attended on to obtain a warrant for that elusive payment of costs.

Attempts to ascertain whether there are alternative methods to accelerate taxation matters are hampered by the party ordered to pay costs being only too happy to accept the delays imposed by a system that is unable to meet the commercial demands of practice.

Judge Presidents are aware that cost-bearing parties are using the system to their advantage and in doing so, prejudicing their opponent who doesn’t receive any interest on the outstanding costs until such time as the bill is taxed. Their hands are tied by the existing rules of the process and the realities of strained resources.

Neither the common law nor the Rules of Court, or any of the local rules offer any assistance as far as expediting the finalisation of the question of costs.

The only alternative would be the “modernisation” of the rules relating to the taxation of costs and the enforcement of an order for costs through the Rules Board of each division.

Equillore Ltd (formerly known as The Arbitration Forum) launched a taxing service in July 2007, which is available to practitioners across the board, regardless of where the matter was heard.
The process is based on the principles of mediation and arbitration, and provides a final and enforceable solution. This means that participants no longer have to wait for months to have bills of costs taxed.

In order to have matters taxed with Equillore, the consent of both parties is required. The parties can obtain consent in one of the following manners:

1. Through the Parties having entered into a taxation agreement prior to the matter being heard, which confirms their consent to use Equillore’s taxation service;
2. Through including a provision in a settlement agreement that taxation will take place with Equillore’s taxation service;
3. By a Party including in its Pleadings a prayer that the taxation will take place with Equillore’s taxation service (thereby ensuring effectively that he gets a Court Order that the taxation will take place with Equillore’s taxation service);
4. Each party giving consent to attend the taxation with Equillore after the fact.

The service is popular amongst some practitioners, due to the speed in which a matter can be finalised at a viable cost. Other practitioners (especially those with clients on the receiving end of a bill of costs) have remained steadfast in their reasoning that it is not in the best interest of their clients to expedite the taxing of indebted costs.

In light of this new awareness, especially amongst the legal profession in the Cape Provincial Division, attorneys are now electing to incorporate a prayer in their settlement agreements and draft orders that “costs be taxed by Equillore”.

The Cape Provincial Division’s High Court Bench recently set a precedent by granting an order in such prayers (S.A.R.L Tonnellerie Loureiro vs. Latarie (Pty) Ltd). In (Van Reenen vs RAF a settlement agreement in these terms was made an order of court.) Full details of Court Order available here..

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