Players ordered to cover £2.8m in defendants’ legal costs in rugby brain-injury case by end of October

Players were held liable for £2.8m in legal fees to the defendants in the ongoing rugby brain injury litigation in court on Friday, with the bulk of that sum required to be paid by the end of October for the action to continue in anything like its current form.

The court linked the charges to delays it attributed to the previous solicitors, Rylands Garth, whose conduct Senior Master Cook described as the "contradictory and misguided approach" that caused the postponements. Hundreds of claimants have been struck off the action for breaching a court order to disclose all available documents related to their neurological testing to the defendants — World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union, the Welsh Rugby Union and the Rugby Football League. Cook said those struck-off cases would be permitted to proceed only if the defendants’ legal fees were settled and KP Law, the firm that replaced Rylands Garth in July, could fulfil the outstanding disclosure obligations by the end of October.

Paul Downes KC, acting for the claimants, told the court the litigation remained "in crisis" and described the players as being in "whatever watering hole lies beyond the last chance saloon". Downes accepted that "someone was going to have put their hand in their pocket" to meet the £2.8m costs, but he and others said it was unclear who would do so.

The claimants’ action is being funded by the legal finance firm Asertis, which, the court heard, has already met the multimillion-pound costs of the claimants’ legal work and all the neurological testing carried out during the six years the case has been running.

Downes warned that if the affected cases were struck off the delays already experienced would deny many claimants their chance of legal redress; he told the court, "I understand seven of the rugby union claimants are deceased," and added, "The sort of delays we are talking about almost certainly mean there would be many more."

Cook also expressed concern that the same legal team was engaged on a second large-scale litigation concerning brain injuries in football and questioned the potential impact on the rugby proceedings. The court was told Rylands Garth had recently insisted it intended to continue with the football action but has applied to come off the record in that litigation and will no longer be acting on behalf of the claimants; it remains unclear who, if anyone, will take that case over.

The immediate requirement set by the court is that the defendants’ legal fees be paid and that KP Law completes the outstanding disclosure by the end of October for the struck-off rugby cases to be reinstated; if those conditions are not met the action will not continue in its present form.