Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Legal costs in South Africa are generally regarded as being too high. This leads to numerous problems. For example, a person with a valid dispute who cannot afford to have the dispute resolved in court, has limited access to justice, which is a constitutional right. The two methods that are most commonly used by attorneys engaged in litigation in South Africa to account to their clients are: Hourly billing, where clients are billed for the time spent on a matter or for the volume and number of documents created, and contingency fees, also known as “no win no fee” arrangements. Both these billing systems have disadvantages, including the incidence of risk during the litigation process and the incentive to the attorney to act in the client’s best interest. It is submitted that a fixed fee structure would resolve many of the problems experienced by the traditional billing methods. The challenge is to arrive at a fixed fee structure which is based on a proper analysis of the amount of work involved in the legal process. In order to calculate such a fixed fee structure, the legal process has to be broken into a number of steps and sub-steps, and each of these steps should then be analysed to ascertain how much work it entails. The aim of this study is to arrive at a model for a fixed fee structure which can be implemented at other law firms that are also engaged in litigation work. Primary billing data obtained from the author’s law firm was analysed to ascertain the various steps in the legal process, and to calculate the expected amount of work involved in each step. This data was then used to develop a fixed fee structure model which can be adopted by any litigation law firm, by merely multiplying its own current hourly billing fee structure with the values provided in the model. Certain practical problems which may be encountered during the implementation of the fixed fee structure are also discussed and possible alternative solutions are provided.

Access to justice and the right to a fair trial are basic human rights explicitly stipulated in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as well as in the Swedish constitution. The fundamental meaning of these rights is that everyone should have an effective option for bringing their case to a court governed by the rule of law. Counsel fees and other process-costs may constitute a significant barrier to entry for an individual bringing his or her case to the court. Consequently, such cost-related barriers may deprive individuals of their right to a fair trial in practice. This fact is recognised in many legislations through legal aid provisions, reimbursement rules or similar mechanisms with the common purpose of eliminating, or at least lowering, the cost-barrier in question for the individual. Tax cases are often complex, and the average taxpayer would typically need to obtain legal counsel to vindicate his or her rights in a dispute with the tax authority. The taxpayer’s costs for such vindication may consequently be high. Swedish legislation stipulates that such costs under certain circumstances can be reimbursed by the state. In practice, however, the taxpayer seldom gets reimbursed for the full cost or even the majority of the cost, regardless of the outcome of the case. Even if the taxpayer wins the court case against the tax authority, it is not unusual that the taxpayer gets no reimbursement at all. This thesis analyses the Swedish reimbursement model for process-costs in tax cases and how it relates to the right to a fair trial. The question is whether the relevant legislation, and/or the courts’ application of it, risks being in breach of the ECHR’s and/or the Swedish constitution’s stipulated right to a fair trial. This thesis argues that it does; not as a result of the legislation itself, but because of the courts’ application of it. The risk of violating the right to a fair trial correlates primarily with two factors. These are what are at stake for the taxpayer (typically the disputed tax amount) and the complexity of the legal issues involved in the case. Trigger points for when the respective factor comes into play from a human rights perspective are analysed and discussed in the thesis. When they do, the absence of real possibilities of reimbursement of process-costs in a given tax case may constitute an unacceptable barrier for the individual to access justice and get a fair trial.

In this article, the author introduces us to the institution of third party funding and its future application in arbitration litigation. Third party funding allows the litigant’s costs can be funded. Moreover, he points out the problems that the third party financing has, and the implementation of rules to deal with this situation. Finally, there is a tendency to expand the duty of disclosure of the parties whether a third party is funding them. / En este artículo, el autor nos introduce a la institución del third party funding y su futura aplicación en los litigios arbitrales. El third party funding permite que los costos del litigante puedan ser financiados. Asimismo, señala los problemas que presenta el tercero financista, y la implementación de normas para afrontar esa situación. Finalmente, hay una tendencia de ampliar el deber de revelación de las partes sobre si se está siendo financiado por un tercero.

Rättegångskostnader – Costs in Civil Procedure The rules on costs in Chapter 18 of the Swedish Code of Legal Procedure (Sw: Rättegångsbalken) have an impact on several procedural questions but have rarely been thoroughly discussed in legal practice or theory since their adoption in 1942. On the other hand, since the Code was adopted civil procecedure scholars have considerably focused on the development and changes in society and how they affect civil procedure. This thesis aims at examining both these lines of development. The impact of the theoretical discussions during the 20th century is critically addressed, with special attention to cost-related questions, and the application of rules on costs in some current and actual situations are examined and evaluated from a pragmatic perspective. The inquiry shows that costs have been of indirect relevance for the theoretical discussion in procedural law and that this theoretical development in turn has had effects on cost rules. Changing views on civil procedure have led to altered framings of cost problems and to shifts in how the rules have been comprehended and applied. The inquiry covers questions on cost assessment and cost shifting between the parties, as well as problems connected to possibilities to spread costs and risk on legal representatives, funders and others. It is argued that a more compromising and pluralistic application of the rules combined with more explicit communication in cost issues between the parties and the court during early stages of the proceedings may facilitate and lead to more nuanced cost decisions without burdening the final stages of the proceedings with extensive legal argumentation.