When costs are awarded, it is usually on a standard basis and where the party claiming costs has to demonstrate that the costs are reasonable before being allowed to claim for it. In practice, what this means is that the amount of costs awarded can be significantly lower than any out-of-pocket legal fees you may have paid your lawyers. So typically, at the Court of Appeal, where costs is awarded whether the appeal is allowed or dismissed, the figure for costs can be as low as RM5,000 or RM10,000 although a party may have paid its lawyer a lot more than that.

In certain exceptional circumstances, costs can be awarded on an indemnity basis. In practice, this means that a party ought to be allowed a full reimbursement of that party’s out-of-pocket legal expenses unless the paying party can show that certain items were so unreasonable.

The guiding principles on costs on an indemnity basis was summarised in the English High Court decision of Fiona Trust & Holding Corporate and ors v Yuri Privalov and ors [2011] EWHC 664 (Comm), where Justice Andrew Smith at [61] identified the following guiding principles:

“(1) The court should have regard to all the circumstances of the case and the discretion to award indemnity costs is extremely wide.

(2) The critical requirement before an indemnity order can be made in the successful defendant’s favour is that there must be some conduct or some circumstance which takes the case out of the norm.

(3) Insofar as the conduct of the unsuccessful claimant is relied on as a ground for ordering indemnity costs, the test is not conduct attracting moral condemnation, which is an a fortiori ground, but rather unreasonableness.

(4) The court can and should have regard to the conduct of an unsuccessful claimant during the proceedings, both before and during the trial, as well as whether it was reasonable for the claimant to raise and pursue particular allegations and the manner in which the claimant pursued its case and its allegations.

(5) Where a claim is speculative, weak, opportunistic or thin, a claimant who chooses to pursue it is taking a high risk and can expect to pay indemnity costs if it fails.

(6) A fortiori, where the claim includes allegation of dishonesty, let alone allegations of conduct meriting an award to the claimant of exemplary damages, and those allegations are pursued aggressively inter alia by hostile cross-examination.

(7) Where the unsuccessful allegations are the subject of extensive publicity, especially where it has been courted by the unsuccessful claimant, that is a further ground.

(8) The following circumstances take a case out of the norm and justify an order for indemnity costs, particularly when taken in combination with the fact that a defendant has discontinued only at a very late stage in proceedings:

(a) Where the claimant advances and aggressively pursues serious and wide ranging allegations of dishonesty or impropriety over an extended period of time;

(b) Where the claimant advances and aggressively pursues such allegations, despite the lack of any foundation in the documentary evidence for those allegations, and maintains the allegations, without apology, to the bitter end;

(c) Where the claimant actively seeks to court publicity for its serious allegations both before and during the trial in the international, and national and local media;

(d) Where the claimant, by its conduct, turns a case into an unprecedented factual enquiry by the pursuit of an unjustified case;

(e) Where the claimant pursues a claim which is, to put it most charitably, thin and, in some respects, far-fetched;

(f) Where the claimant pursues a claim which is irreconcilable with the contemporaneous documents;

(g) Where a claimant commences and pursues large-scale and expensive litigation in circumstances calculated to exert commercial pressure on a defendant, and during the course of the trial of the action, the claimant resorts to advancing a constantly changing case in order to justify the allegations which it has made, only then to suffer a resounding defeat.”

Locally, the Federal Court in Takako Sakao (f) v Ng Pek Yuen (f) & Anor (No 2) [2010] 2 MLJ 181 has held that the discretion to award costs on an indemnity basis is unfettered. Gopal Sri Ram FCJ quoted with approval some of the guidelines for an award of indemnity costs as discussed by Millett J (later Lord Millett) in Macmillan Inc v Bishopsgate Investment Trust plc and others (No 3) [1995] 3 All ER 747 :

 The power to order taxation on an indemnity basis is not confined to cases which have been brought with an ulterior motive or for an improper purpose. Litigants who conduct their cases in bad faith, or as a personal vendetta, or in an improper or oppressive manner, or who cause costs to be incurred irrationally or out of all proportion as to what is at stake, may also expect to be ordered to pay costs on an indemnity basis if they lose, and have part of their costs disallowed if they win. Nor are these necessarily the only situations where the jurisdiction may be exercised; the discretion is not to be fettered or circumscribed beyond the requirement that taxation on an indemnity basis must be ‘appropriate’.