Phonographic Performance Ltd v Raymond Hagan (aka Raymond Edward Hagan) and Others

There is near universal consensus amongst contentious IP practitioners in the UK that the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC") has been a great success over recent years. Central to this success have been IPEC’s scale costs provisions, which impose limits on the amount which a litigant in IPEC can recover from his opponent, both overall and in respect of stages of the litigation process. This certainty around costs exposure has made IPEC the court of choice for many litigants with IP disputes. However, a recent IPEC ruling held that, where a party to IPEC proceedings makes a Part 36 offer, the usual costs consequences of not accepting the offer will trump the IPEC scale costs regime. This ruling is likely to be game-changer for litigants in IPEC. This article analyses the ruling and assesses what its long-term implications are likely to be.