Lord Justice Leggatt of the High Court has been forced to scale back legal costs after US firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges racked up £1.5m in fees representing client BlackRock.
Investment management company BlackRock defended a case against energy firm Dana Gas last year and in November BlackRock was deemed successful on a preliminary issue. As a result, BlackRock produced an estimate of costs amounting to £408,000 and asked the court to order Dana Gas pay 60%. After Dana made seven further unsuccessful applications to the court, BlackRock again demanded 60% of its costs to be paid. Overall, it estimated its costs to be £1.47m.
