Pippa Manby

“Pippa Manby is a very thorough advocate who is always brilliantly prepared.” – Chambers & Partners

“If you are not instructing Pippa you are missing out on one of the sharpest, smartest and steadiest costs barristers currently practising.” – Legal 500

“A strong advocate, able to go up alone against leading counsel and pivot rapidly in the face of unexpected developments.” – Legal 500

“Pippa Manby is a very thorough advocate who is always brilliantly prepared.” “Effective communicator – both with client and judge.” – Legal 500

“She has a level of expertise that far exceeds her year of call.” – Legal 500

Costs forms a substantial part of Pippa’s practice and she is ranked as a Leading Junior by Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500.  Pippa is regularly instructed in both inter-parties and solicitor-client disputes covering the full range of costs matters.  She appears regularly in costs matters in the County Courts, Senior Courts Costs Office and High Court and has appeared before the Supreme Court’s costs officers.

Pippa has experience of cases concerning:

• enforceability of CFAs
• reasonableness and recoverability of ATE premiums
• wasted costs applications
• defending various wasted costs applications on behalf of solicitors and barristers
• costs budgeting
• the requirements for interim statute bills
• applications for assessments under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974
• appeals against judicial exercise of discretion in respect of costs
• Part 36
• solicitors’ liens
• public funding
• disallowance of costs on the grounds of misconduct / delay
• provisional assessments and challenges to the same
• solicitors’ failure to provide necessary costs information / inadequate retainer letters
• costs orders for and against non-parties
• litigation funding

Featured Costs cases

• Municipio de Mariana & ors v BHP: Acting (as part of a team led by Alain Choo-Choy KC) for over 750,000 claimants (including municipalities, businesses, utility companies, individuals, religious entities and Indigenous peoples) in the largest opt-in class action lawsuit in English legal history relating to the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Minas Gerais, Brazil, which caused the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history. Part of Pippa’s role is in relation to the costs elements of the claim.  The case was selected as one of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases for 2024.
• Advising in relation to funding issues in relation to group litigation in both the courts and the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
• Acting for the receiving party in a claim for £60m + costs following a 14-week Commercial Court trial: Deutsche Bank AG v Sebastian Holdings Inc [2021] EWHC B4 (Costs); Deutsche Bank AG v Sebastian Holdings Inc [2021] EWHC B10 (Costs); Deutsche Bank v Vik [2022] EWHC 2920 (SCCO); Deutsche Bank v Vik [2023] EWHC 9 (SCC).
• Acting for solicitors in defence of an application to assess the entirety of their fees for acting in a substantial Commercial Court fraud case which ran to a six-week trial.
• Acting for clients seeking an assessment of £3.25m fees charged in a High Court shareholder dispute.
• Appearing as sole counsel against two KCs in a 14-day appeal relating to a solicitor and/or costs draftsmen’s misconduct in costs proceedings. The matter was subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeal where it is the leading case on misconduct in costs proceedings: Gempride v Bamrah [2018] EWCA Civ 1367.
• Acting (led by Dan Saoul KC) in a detailed assessment of a £16m bill of costs arising from a large intellectual property dispute. The assessment was listed for 6 weeks but settled shortly before commencement.
• Woodburn v Thomas [2017] EWHC B16 (Costs) – a case in which Master McCloud gave guidance on the relationship of costs budgeting in Precedent H and the subsequent Bill of Costs.
• Acting for the bank in Clydesdale Bank Plc v Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward Ltd [2014] 2 WLUK 175, a case concerning when liability for costs commences.