counter proposal and costs

Evidence on official site
POL00069794
POL00069794

Telephone attendance

Client: Royal Mail Group PLC Sub Postmaster Litigation

Matter: Mr Lee Castleton Matter no: 348035.134
Attending:

Name: Stephen Dilley Location: N/A Date: 9 November 2006
Start time: Units:

I had a telephone conversation with Richard Morgan following up my emails to him of this
morning. Firstly in relation to the email I had sent him in relation to week 42, in fact it was
week 49 that they were querying. I recalled that this was the transfer of the £3,500 into the
suspense account. We had also dealt with that week separately and so I will email Richard
about it.

Secondly Richard stated that he thought the best resort we would get is judgment, standard
costs and may be indemnity costs from the time of the part 36 offer onwards. He too had
been thinking about whether they might apply to accept the part 36 offer. I explained to
him that I was trying to keep the pressure on them so that they didn’t think to do that and I
was agreeing an exchange with them by DX on Friday because we couldn’t fax all our
statements as they were too voluminous. They had agreed this verbally and I was going to
ask them to agree it in writing and Richard suggested that I asked them to send a copy to
him too. He also wanted to know if I had received the signed amended defence and I said
that I hadn’t. I said that they had in principle agreed to an extension of time to serve the
amended reply but I would ask them to confirm that in writing. Also Richard will approach
the other side’s counsel to ask for confirmation of when he is available for the PTR.

Thereafter going on to discuss the sort of counter proposal we want to make in a bit more
detail. Agreeing that as an opening offer we should seek payment of the claim in full ie
£25,858.95.

In relation to costs, we can either seek a lump sum payment now, say within 14 days (on the
basis that they will come back to us with 28 days or instalment payments and if Mr Castleton
is paying this himself, I don’t think we have any objection to receiving instalment payments).
The alternative costs option to give them is to pay costs on an indemnity basis together with
an interim payment on account - Richard suggested the interim payment should be
£100,000.

I said that ultimately, the Post Office driver had been getting a judgment against Mr
Castleton to show that the computer system wasn’t wrong and deter other sub post masters
from bringing a claim. I therefore thought the most important thing for them was getting
judgment for the full amount, and that we want as much costs recovery as possible, but
given that I had previously told the Post Office that Mr Castleton’s asset position was
unclear, I think that if there is going to be any movement at all in our negotiating position it
is going to be on costs.

We are now in Mandy’s hands in relation to what she wants to go back with and I will speak
to Richard as soon as I hear from her.

36 minutes

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