CITIC Ltd v Mineralogy Pty Ltd [No 7]

The case of CITIC Ltd v Mineralogy Pty Ltd [No 7] involved a dispute over costs in a long-running litigation between the plaintiffs, CITIC Ltd, Sino Iron Pty Ltd, Korean Steel Pty Ltd, and Cape Preston Resource Holdings Pty Ltd, and the defendants, Mineralogy Pty Ltd and Clive Frederick Palmer. The plaintiffs sought their costs 'thrown away' as a result of the late amendments to Mineralogy's and Mr Palmer's defences, and that the costs be taxed on an indemnity basis. The defendants essentially accepted that the plaintiffs should receive their costs of the action up to a certain date but on a taxed, party and party basis only. The court was required to decide on the appropriate final post-trial costs orders. The court held that the plaintiffs were successful at the trial and that Mineralogy and Mr Palmer's conduct in their defence of the action, up until a relatively short time before the commencement of the trial, were overall unreasonable. It was appropriate for the court to mark its disapproval of that conduct by an issue of an indemnity costs order. The order will be applicable until 10 November 2020. The following orders should issue as regards the costs of this action: 1) The defendants are to pay the plaintiffs their costs of this action until 10 November 2020 on a full indemnification basis, and for the period thereafter, on a party and party basis, to be taxed or agreed, save that scale limits are to be removed for the purposes of any taxation and in the respects as identified in par 7(c) of the affidavit of Tania Cini sworn 6 July 2021, for the purposes of any taxation. 2) The plaintiffs are entitled to their costs for only two of the four days of the trial. 3) There will be no order as to the costs of the costs argument appointment hearing on 8 October 2021.