Rebekah Vardy must pay at least £1.4m of Coleen Rooney's Wagatha legal costs
Rebekah Vardy must pay at least £1.4m of Coleen Rooney's Wagatha legal costs
It follows the so-called Wagatha Christie libel trial after Coleen Rooney accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories about her to The Sun
Coleen Rooney (left) and Rebekah Vardy during the libel trial
(Image: PA Media )
A judge has ruled that Rebekah Vardy has to pay Coleen Rooney at least £1.4 million in legal costs after the so-called Wagatha Christie libel battle.
Mrs Vardy tried to sue Mrs Rooney at the High Court in 2022 but lost her legal battle and the pair have been in a dispute over costs since that time.
On the morning of Tuesday, May 6, a specialist costs court was told Mrs Vardy had agreed to pay £1,190,000 of Mrs Rooney's legal costs. Mrs Rooney was requesting £315,000 more in "assessment costs", the court heard.
Mark Whalan, the costs judge, said it was "reasonable and proportionate" for Mrs Vardy to pay £212,266.20 of Mrs Rooney's assessment costs, inclusive of VAT but before interest. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter
This would be on top of the £1.19m settlement, leading to a total of at least £1,402,266.20.
It was a "commercially satisfactory conclusion for both sides", said the judge who pointed out he was "generally happy" with what had been decided.
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However, there had been "extraordinary expenditure of costs" by the parties, he said, adding: "I do mean it when I say that I hope that this is the end of a long and unhappy road."
Judge Whalan said the two "can both part to put this matter behind them", at the remote hearing which did not take part in the presence of Mrs Vardy or Mrs Rooney, the wife of former England striker Wayne Rooney
Juliet Wells, Mrs Vardy's barrister, said earlier in the day that Mrs Vardy had agreed to pay £1.19m of Mrs Rooney's legal bill, including VAT. This was made up of around £65,000 in interest and £1.12m in costs.
Mrs Rooney had previously put forward a legal bill of £1,833,906.89, which Ms Wells said in written submissions was "substandard", the court previously heard.
The additional £315,000 claimed was "grossly disproportionate" and should be capped at £100,000, claimed Ms Wells. She suggested that Mrs Rooney had "taken a kitchen sink approach to costs". Representing Mrs Rooney, Robin Dunne said it "sits slightly ill in the mouth for Mrs Vardy to make criticisms of Mrs Rooney".
In written submissions, he explained in written submissions that the £315,000 figure "is higher than would have been the case had Mrs Vardy approached these costs proceedings reasonably". "If Mrs Vardy now wishes that the sum claimed were lower, she need only reflect upon her approach and conduct throughout," he said.
It had been a "difficult and high-profile case", said Judge Whalan, who added that the agreement today had come after "enormous time, expenditure and grief".
Some of the assessment costs claimed by Mrs Rooney were "unreasonably high and disproportionate", he said, and "a little eyebrow-raising"
Since last November both parties had been "stuck in a rut of being a few percentage points apart" on the final settlement, he added.
"This is the definition of bad litigation over the past six months as far as the claimant (Mrs Vardy) is concerned," he said.
Mrs Rooney said she had carried out a months-long "sting operation" and accused Mrs Vardy of leaking information about her private life to the press, in a social media post in October, 2019, which went viral and was at the heart of the libel claim.
Mrs Vardy's account was claimed by Mrs Rooney to be the source behind three stories in The Sun newspaper. They featured fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile – about her travelling to Mexico for a "gender selection" procedure, a basement flooding incident, and a return to TV she said she was planning.
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Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Mrs Rooney's favour following a very public court case, finding it was "likely" that Mrs Vardy's agent, Caroline Watt, had passed information to The Sun and that Mrs Vardy "knew of and condoned this behaviour" and had "actively" engaged in it.
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