(1) A party may apply to the court to set a costs budget for the proceedings.
(2) An application for a costs budget must be made at a case management conference.
(3) The application may be made by either or both parties but an order setting a costs budget may not be made by consent unless all relevant parties are bodies corporate.
(4) An application for a costs budget must be accompanied by —
(a) a statement of the amount that the party seeking the order wishes to be set as the costs budget;
(b) a statement showing how the budget has been calculated and setting out in particular —
(i) a breakdown of the costs incurred to date,
(ii) the anticipated amount of any expert witness fees and whether or not such fees are included in the budget,
(iii) the disbursements other than expert fees that are included in the budget,
(iv) the fees that are anticipated to be paid to any legal practitioner other than the legal practitioner on record for advocacy (including advocacy by a King's Counsel, a Senior Counsel or more than one legal practitioner), advising or settling any document,
(v) the hourly rate charged by the legal practitioner (or other basis of charging),
(vi) a statement of the number of hours of preparation time (including attendances upon the party, any witness and any other party to the proceedings) that the legal practitioner for the party making the application has already spent and anticipates will be required to bring the proceedings to trial, and
(vii) what procedural steps or applications are or are not included in the budget; and
(c) the written consent from the client in accordance with rule 65.9.
(5) A party may apply to vary the terms of an order made under this rule at any time prior to the commencement of the trial but no order may be made increasing the amount of the budgeted costs unless the court is satisfied that there has been a change of circumstances which became known after the order was made.