Rebekah Vardy loses yet another appeal against Wagatha Christie £1.8m costs ruling
10 April 2025, 11:45
Rebekah Vardy has lost her latest appeal against paying costs in the 'Wagatha Christie' legal case against Coleen Rooney after she was left footing a bill of £1.8million.
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A judge has now ruled that Rooney's lawyers did not commit misconduct after being accused of "deliberately" understating some of her costs in her high-profile Wagatha Christie libel battle.
Mrs Vardy unsuccessfully sued Mrs Rooney in 2022, with the two now in further dispute over how much Mrs Vardy should pay in legal costs as a result.
Ms Vardy's barristers previously told a costs judge that Ms Rooney and her legal team committed “serious misconduct” by understating some of her costs to “attack the other party’s costs” in October last year.
A judge has now ruled that no misconduct had been committed.
Mrs Vardy appealed against the decision last month, claiming it constituted "serious misconduct", while Mrs Rooney's lawyers claimed the challenge was "misconceived".
In a ruling on Thursday, High Court judge Mr Justice Cavanagh dismissed the appeal.
He said: "The appeal must fail on the basis that the judge was entitled to reach the conclusion that he came to."
Lawyers for the two women returned to the High Court last month in a bid to confirm how much money Vardy should pay Rooney after she lost her 2022 libel case.
Mrs Rooney had accused Mrs Vardy of leaking her private information to the press, with Wednesday marking the fifth anniversary of the viral social media post at the heart of the dispute.
Mrs Vardy sued her for libel, but Mrs Justice Steyn found in July 2022 that the allegation was "substantially true", ordering Vardy to pay Rooney a whopping £800,000.
Read more: Coleen Rooney 'signs up for I’m A Celeb' in wake of latest Wagatha Christie win
Last month she was ordered to pay a further £100,000.
This week, lawyers for the women appeared in court as Vardy attempts to have the cash she is expected to pay out reduced.
In a three-day hearing, lawyers for Mrs Vardy - the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy - argued that the sum should be reduced due to what they said was "serious misconduct" by Mrs Rooney's legal team, who allegedly "deliberately understated" her costs.
But Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker found "on balance and, I have to say, only just", that Mrs Rooney's legal team had not committed wrongdoing, and therefore it was "not an appropriate case" to reduce the amount of money that Mrs Vardy should pay.
Court documents revealed today show that Vardy has launched an appeal bid over the amount she was ordered to pay Rooney.
The previous hearing in London was told that Mrs Rooney's claimed legal bill - £1,833,906.89 - was more than three times her "agreed costs budget of £540,779.07", which Jamie Carpenter KC, for Mrs Vardy, said was "disproportionate".
He claimed that Mrs Rooney's legal team had committed misconduct by understating some of her costs so she could "use the apparent difference in incurred costs thereby created to attack the other party's costs", which was "knowingly misleading".
Robin Dunne, for Mrs Rooney, said that "there has been no misconduct" and that it was "illogical to say that we misled anyone".
He added that the argument that the amount owed should be reduced was "misconceived" and that the budget was "not designed to be an accurate or binding representation" of her overall legal costs.
Judge Gordon-Saker ruled that while there was a "failure to be transparent", it was not "sufficiently unreasonable or improper" to constitute misconduct.
He ordered Mrs Vardy to pay Mrs Rooney a further £100,000 ahead of the full amount owed being decided at a later date.
