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[Nicholas Bohm]

On 30/03/2012 17:50, Igor Mozolevsky wrote:
> On 30 March 2012 16:00, Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186 at zen.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> If so, why are golden showers asking £700?
> Because that's how much it would (generally) cost you to defend the
> claim if you instructed a solicitor. Obviously if you lose, you'd have
> to pay the damages plus court costs on top of that, and if you win,
> you don't get back the money you paid to the solicitor to defend the
> claim as the claim would most likely be allocated to the small claims
> track. So you end up having to gamble: pay them or take your chances
> in front of a judge (and pay essentially the same amount)...
>
> At least that's my speculation.
>

I don't think it was so closely calculated (partly because £700 wouldn't
be enough to pay for the defence of such a claim).

In the findings of the Tribunal against Davenport Lyons partners (linked
here recently) there are references to the sum being described by
Davenport Lyons to its clients as equivalent to "a big parking ticket" -
enough to raise a decent amount of revenue from payers, and likely to
raise it because it was too small to be worth fighting.  In practice
they were wrong, and the scheme was uneconomic to pursue (as well as
leading to the suspension from practice for three months of two
partners, fines of £20,000 each and a claim for costs of the prosecution
of over £400,000).

Nicholas
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