Costs of up to £1.5m ordered with an interim payment of £800,000
Mrs Justice Steyn has ordered that Rebekah Vardy should pay Coleen Rooney up to £1.5m of costs following the libel trial.
Coleen Rooney succeeded with her truth defence, in a judgment handed down in July. The 5RB case report of the judgment is available here.
Mrs Rooney has now been awarded 90% of her costs, which would amount to around £1.5m, on the indemnity basis. Steyn J concluded, in making the order for indemnity costs, that “what takes this case out of the norm in a way which compels the conclusion that I should make an order for indemnity costs is that in my judgment following the trial I found that the Claimant (and also her former agent) had deliberately deleted or destroyed evidence”. An initial payment on account of £800,000 must be paid by Mrs Vardy to Mrs Rooney by 15 November.
5RB’s David Sherborne and Ben Hamer (instructed by Brabners LLP) acted for Coleen Rooney.
The decision has been covered throughout the media: