Mr. Dave Coleman:

There are two types of costs. There are the costs in funding the case and the costs incurred if one loses the case. The third party funding costs run to the establishment and execution of the case and the adverse costs are the costs the plaintiffs are exposed to in the event of a successful defence by the defendants. I agree that there should be third party funding. It should be very much a matter between the plaintiffs and their funders as to what the relationship is and how it survives the court system. In other words, there will be commercial terms in any third party funding and we should not try to legislate as to what that is as it will be a matter of actuarial assessment of risk more than anything else.

The second part of the costs issue is the adverse costs order. In the Bill I marked up, I removed the word "joint". The judge would only be able to make a several costs order against each of the participants in the case. This would greatly reduce the risk and increase the appealability of the legislation to the ordinary person. I would ask that the costs would be split out and that funding of third party actions would be allowed. I would also ask that the person with means would be protected from his or her fellow defendants if there is a loss because their loss falls on his or her shoulders also. People have to be protected too.