The Court of Appeal decision in Joint Action Funding Ltd v Eichelbaum [2017] NZCA 249 said that for a person to recover costs under the High Court Rules that person needed to have personally incurred those costs with a lawyer and been invoiced for them by that lawyer. JAFL was concerned with a claim for costs by a barrister acting for himself. Unsuccessful defendants in claims brought via litigation funders have argued since JAFL that because the legal costs are not incurred by the actual party then no costs are recoverable. Fortunately the Supreme Court in McGuire v Secretary for Justice [2018] NZSC 116 has said that JAFL was wrongly decided.
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