Philip Daval-Bowden

Managing Partner

Masters Legal Costs Services LLP is one of the world’s leading legal costs consultancies. Founded in London in 1986, Masters has provided costs advice and consultancy services in some of the largest and most complex global litigation.

Philip Daval-Bowden is an expert Costs Lawyer who has specialised in the field of costs law for over 30 years. Philip practises at the highest level in the United Kingdom and, in early 2019, relocated to the Cayman Islands to found the firm’s Grand Cayman office offering all aspects of costs consultancy to Caribbean based attorneys.

Masters’ Grand Cayman office is used as a base for the provision of legal costs services not only to the Cayman Islands but across the Caribbean including to the Bahamas, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.

Philip regularly acts in high profile and high value commercial litigation often involving numerous jurisdictions where multi-million pound costs are at stake and legal principles are being tested. Philip is regularly instructed in litigation where appeals are heard by the UK Supreme Court and Privy Council and also advises extensively on costs budgeting and costs management. Philip continues to act as the Claimants’ appointed costs expert in managed litigation in the UK arising from the phone-hacking scandal including the Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation (MTVIL) against News Group Newspapers, the MGN Hacking Litigation (MNHL) against Mirror Group Newspapers and the Grenfell Tower Fire Litigation.

Philip has been instructed to assist in costs issues arising in a number of complex and high-profile cases litigated in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands including:

Weavering Macro Fixed Income Fund (in Official Liquidation) –v- Ernst and Young Chartered Accountants (a firm) and Others; and
Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company –v- Saad Investments Company Limited and Others
Jafar v Abraaj Holdings
HSBC v Primeo Fund

Philip acts on behalf of both receiving and paying parties in the taxation of costs and assists in the preparation of detailed Bills of Costs for taxation and also in the preparation of Points of Dispute/Objections as well as providing a full consultancy service in respect of all legal costs issues.

The recovery and/or payment of costs following contentious litigation is often of extreme and understandable importance to litigants.

The instruction of a costs expert to assist in this specialist process is both cost-effective and efficient and allows the best possible service to be offered to parties involved in the taxation of legal costs.

The costs services offered are not limited to those demanded by the contentious taxation of costs (the Recovery of Costs and Opposition of Costs) but include:

Advice on the likely recoverable legal costs and negotiations in respect thereof;
Security for Costs applications;
Costs Mediation;
Provision of Expert Evidence; and
Attorney and Own Client fee disputes;

As a qualified mediator and costs expert, Philip offers a full confidential and impartial costs mediation service as an expeditious means of resolving costs disputes swiftly, fairly and at minimal cost.