Court orders assessment of $35m Chamberlain bill over failure to keep client informed

“I’ve never seen such levels of costs accrued with such limited information provided,” says costs judge

The son of one of the world’s richest people has been given permission to challenge his solicitors’ $35m bills after a costs judge said he had “never previously encountered a case in which such levels of costs accrued with such limited information being provided to the client”.

Costs Judge Leonard in the Senior Courts Costs Office held that the retainer entered into between Alberto Safra and the London office of US firm WilmerHale was not a contentious business agreement (CBA) and that the bills rendered formed a Chamberlain bill.

Safra v Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP [2026] EWHC 703 (SCCO) concerned the costs of the son of Joseph Safra – who in his lifetime had been the wealthiest person in Brazil and one of the wealthiest in the world – in using WilmerHale to act in disputeswith members of his family over his father’s $23bn estate.

The disputes – which were the subject of five London-based arbitrations and litigation elsewhere in the world – lasted from September 2022 until July 2024, when they were settled. Mr Safra has paid $16.4m of the $35m WilmerHale billed in that time.

The judge said the firm’s hourly rates were increased twice during the retainer, in January 2023 and 2024, but it failed to notify the client of these as and when they occurred, as the engagement letter had said it would.

While it was common ground that the work was contentious business for the purposes of the Solicitors Act 1974, the first question before the court was whether the engagement letter was a CBA.

WilmerHale was under no obligation to advise its client that it was, Judge Leonard held, while the reference in the engagement letter to a right to apply for assessment was not consistent with it being a CBA.

The “decisive factor” was the uncertainty about the firm’s fees – the provision for hourly rate increases was “entirely open-ended” and this was “wholly inconsistent with the proposition that the engagement letter was a CBA”

The judge added: “The consultation and complaint provisions in the engagement letter do not alter its straightforward provision for the defendant to increase its hourly rates by any amount and at any time it saw fit.

“The defendant’s only obligation to liaise with the claimant in that respect was to notify the claimant of the increases when they took effect. The defendant’s right to increase its hourly rates was not contingent upon such notification, much less agreement by the claimant.”

Even if he had found it a CBA, he would have found the letter unreasonable in providing for the hourly rates to be increased at times and by amounts dictated entirely by the firm, whilst simultaneously removing the client’s section 70 rights to challenge those rates.

“I would, accordingly, have concluded that the engagement letter (had it been a CBA) should be set aside as unreasonable, and that the defendant’s billed costs should be assessed in their entirety.”

Judge Leonard then found that the retainer entitled WilmerHale to deliver interim statute bills – it provided for “monthly statements” – but that the bills it delivered did not meet the requirements for them.

While the invoices met the standard of particularity, there was a “discrepancy between the description of the ‘monthly statements’ described in the engagement letter and the finalised invoices subsequently delivered by the defendant”.

Judge Leonard explained: “An interim statutory bill does not have to incorporate all disbursements incurred during the period that it covers. For that reason, I saw no difficulty in the fact that the engagement letter provided for monthly statements that would only incorporate expenses ‘recorded on our books’ during the previous month.

“The standard wording on the defendant’s finalised (and draft) invoices is, however, materially different in that, as the claimant points out, each monthly invoice ‘Includes only services and disbursements posted to date’.

“The clear meaning of that phrase is that some of the work performed by the defendant during the period covered by each invoice might not have been ‘posted’, in other words recorded upon the defendant’s systems, at the time of delivery and accordingly might have to be included in a subsequent invoice. In other words, none of the finalised invoices are stated to be final for the period they cover: quite the contrary.”

Instead, the judge agreed that the series of invoices comprised a statutory Chamberlain bill, delivered on 17 September 2024.

As it was part paid, the court had a discretion under section 70(2) to order assessment of the whole bill without the need first to establish special circumstances. The judge so ordered and said he would in any event have found special circumstances because of the failure to keep the client fully informed on costs.

Such information as was given in 2023 was “at widely spaced intervals”, while for the period between December 2023 and July 2024 – for which the final bills totalled $14m – no detailed costs information was given until after the termination of the retainer, on 17 September.

During this period there were discussions about alternative costs arrangement, during which WilmerHale referenced the balance of outstanding fees “more than once” and offered on three occasions to provide further information.

“The defendant should not however just have offered the information, nor waited until it was asked for. It was incumbent upon the defendant to ensure that information on accruing costs was provided reasonably promptly and regularly. Ideally, as indicated by the engagement letter, it should have been provided on at least a monthly basis.”

Even if it had suited the claimant “to string along discussions about alternative retainer arrangements while paying as little as he could until his goals had been achieved”, this did not absolve the law firm from its “evident failure to give adequate costs information, as costs accrued to a level far beyond what the claimant had said he could afford”.

Judge Leonard continued: “I have not previously encountered a case in which such levels of costs accrued with such limited information being provided to the client. The defendant’s failure to notify the claimant of its hourly rate increases seems symptomatic of a lack of awareness of the importance of keeping the client fully informed of the costs position.

“However much he would have known about what was being done for him, and however pleased he may have been at the level of service provided, the claimant was not regularly being kept aware of what it was costing him.

“That would have been unsatisfactory even if the fees finally billed had not been so far in excess of what he had clearly indicated that he could afford.”

The judge went on to order the assessment without conditions – WilmerHale had argued Mr Safra should first pay 80% of the outstanding invoices – because “the current unfortunate situation is at least as much the responsibility of the defendant as the claimant”.

Nicolas Bacon KC and Simon Teasdale (instructed by Quillon Law) for the claimant. Roger Mallalieu KC (instructed by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr) for the defendant.