The Mail on Sunday

...and victims can’t afford to sue

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BUSINESSES and individual­s seeking money owed to them are being ‘priced out of court’, the Bar Council has warned.

There were 42,091 county court judgments against firms in England and Wales in the first half of 2016, a 19 per cent drop year on year, according to the Registry Trust. Their value was £149million, a fall of 12 per cent.

The Bar Council said the falls were the biggest since before the financial crisis in 2008. High Court judgments fell by 50 per cent to 33 over the same period. The Ministry of Justice raised fees for money claims, which include late payments, in March last year.

The Bar Council said the change – to 5 per cent for small firms and individual­s bringing claims of between £10,000 and £200,000, with fees of up to £10,000 payable up front – represente­d an increase of 660 per cent for a claim of £200,000.

Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said: ‘The courts risk becoming out of bounds for many.’

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