UPC-CoA-49/2026 – Guardant v Sophia
- Court
- Court of Appeal
- Date
- Sector
- Pharma/Bio
- Decision Type
- PROCEDURAL
Expert Commentary
Costs Facts The case concerns a dispute about costs. The JR 1. A defendant that is successful in preliminary injunction (“PI”) proceedings can file cost proceedings within one month after the service of the first instance order or the decision in the case on the merits. 2. Exceeding the ceiling of reasonable costs does not mean that the one is entitled to the ceiling as costs have to be reasonable and proportionate. 3. The Judge-Rapporteur (“JR”) may request the applicant to provide written evidence of all the costs and should give the other party the possibility to comment. In order to enable the other party to be able to judge the necessary and proportionality of the costs there should be a substantiated specification. 4. The JR states: “For the unsuccessful party to be able to comment on both the necessity and the proportionality of the costs for representation, the applicant for a cost decision should provide a sufficiently substantiated specification of the costs in view of the circumstances of the case, which would generally include breakdowns corresponding to each service provided in relation to the case, the date on which such service was provided, and the number of hours and rate billed for that specific service.” 5. The JR sends the case back because this JR has not managed the case in first instance and therefore it is difficult to conduct the cost determination for the first instance. Comment 1. A must read for representatives that do claim costs and judges that deal with such costs proceedings. 2. My advice for (reasonable) representatives: try to agree on costs before the oral argument. For judges: try to force parties to a settlement. A good weapon for this is to require a specification of all costs one week before the oral argument in case no agreement is reached!
Key Holdings
- A defendant successful in preliminary injunction proceedings may initiate cost proceedings within one month after the service of the first-instance order or the decision on the merits.
- Exceeding the applicable cost ceiling does not entitle the prevailing party to that maximum amount, as all claimed costs must remain reasonable and proportionate.
- The applicant for a cost decision must provide a sufficiently substantiated specification of representation costs—including breakdowns per service, dates, hours billed, and hourly rates—to enable the other party to assess necessity and proportionality.
- A Judge-Rapporteur at the Court of Appeal may refer cost determination back to the first instance if they did not manage the first-instance proceedings.
Tags
- Costs