Coleen Rooney’s lawyers did not commit misconduct, a judge has ruled, after the lawyers were accused of “knowingly misleading” Rebekah Vardy by allegedly deliberately understating her “extraordinary” legal costs during their Wagatha Christie libel fight.
Vardy, the wife of the Leicester City footballer Jamie Vardy, lost the high-profile case in July 2022, having sued Rooney for libel.
In 2019, Rooney, the wife of the former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney, had accused Vardy of leaking her private information to the press on social media, which Mrs Justice Steyn found was “substantially true”. In October 2022 the judge ordered Vardy to pay 90% of Rooney’s legal costs.
The pair’s lawyers returned to court in London this week in a dispute over how much should be paid.
Jamie Carpenter KC, for Vardy, claimed in written submissions that Rooney and her legal team “deliberately understated” some of her costs so she could “use the apparent difference in incurred costs thereby created to attack the other party’s costs”, which he claimed constituted serious misconduct. He argued this warranted a reduction in the amount Vardy should pay.
Robin Dunne, for Rooney, argued there had been no misconduct and that it was “illogical to say that we misled anyone”.
In a ruling on Tuesday, that senior costs judge Andrew Gordon-Saker found “on balance, and I have to say only just”, that Rooney’s legal team had not committed wrongdoing and therefore it was “not an appropriate case” to reduce the amount of money that Vardy should pay.
He said that while there had been a “failure to be transparent”, it was not “sufficiently unreasonable or improper” to constitute misconduct.
In written submissions, barristers for Vardy had challenged the “sheer magnitude” of some of Rooney’s legal costs. Carpenter said Rooney’s total claimed legal bill – £1,833,906.89 – was more than three times her “agreed costs budget of £540,779.07” and was “disproportionate”.
He said the bill included a lawyer’s stay “at the Nobu hotel, incurring substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as minibar charges”.
On Tuesday, Dunne said the comment had been made “no doubt to try and argue that the defendant has been profligate in her spending on this litigation” and that it gave a “misleading and factually inaccurate” account.
He said: “Yesterday [Monday] morning, the Sun ran a front-page headline which dealt with minibar charges. It also was reported around the world, over and over again on Twitter, or X, and the impression given by the claimant, Mrs Vardy, when she spoke to the Sun or her sources, was clearly that this was evidence of the defendant spending wildly and that is what she says was wholly unreasonable.
“There are some factual inaccuracies. It is both misleading and factually inaccurate and it is potentially defamatory, and steps are being taken in that respect.”
Dunne said one of Rooney’s solicitors only stayed at the hotel due to a problem with their original booking elsewhere.
He said: “[The solicitor] did not book the Nobu hotel. He booked a modest hotel but on the first night of staying there did not have any working wifi or shower. He was offered to stay at the Nobu by the defendant’s agent, who has a preferential rate.”
He said the food and minibar tab ran to £225, but said the minibar tab “ran to £7, and ran to two bottles of water”.
Dunne continued that the solicitor paid £295 a night to stay at the hotel when going rates were more than £600 a night.
Carpenter, said in response: “We do say that the defendant’s costs are extravagant, but the line-by-line issues are for another occasion.”
The hearing is dealing with points of principle before a line-by-line assessment of costs, which is due to take place at a later date.
Dunne said in his written submissions that Vardy had shown “deplorable conduct” throughout the case, adding: “It sits ill in Vardy’s mouth to now claim that Rooney’s costs, a great deal of which were caused directly by her conduct, are unreasonable.”
In court on Monday, he said Vardy’s argument “smacks, with the best will in the world, of desperation” and that the outcome of the court battle had been “utterly devastating to her”.
He said: “It is probably the most ill-advised legal action since Oscar Wilde put pen to writ.”
The hearing, which neither Rooney nor Vardy attended on Tuesday, is expected to conclude on Wednesday.