Well respected?
// Lord Justice Christopher Clarke's cost judgment in Excalibur Ventures v Texas Keystone and others [2013] is out. To precis the most interesting points, the implication of the judgment is that Clifford Chance (CC) has, for its clients:
◾ aggressively pursued serious and wide-ranging allegations of dishonesty or impropriety;
◾ without any apparent foundation in the documentary evidence for those allegations;
◾ courted publicity for those allegations both before and during the trial;
◾ pursuing a claim which was irreconcilable with the evidence.
I have been spared sight of much of the 5,000 pages of inter solicitor correspondence. It is apparent to me, however, from what I have seen that some of the correspondence from Clifford Chance has been voluminous and interminable, in some circumstances highly aggressive and in others unacceptable in content. These have included ill-founded allegations of criminal conduct in the form of insider dealing, misleading the market and misleading the public about the relationship between Gulf and Texas. Whilst interminable and heavy-handed correspondence is becoming a perverse feature in some commercial litigation, it is not in any way to be accepted as a norm and parties whose solicitors engage in it should not be surprised if, in a case such as this, they end up paying the costs on an indemnity scale. //