Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has renewed his application for permission to appeal against a High Court decision that News Group Newspapers (NGN) does not have to pay his potential legal costs over the phone-hacking affair.
The renewed application means he will get an oral hearing of the application.
The Casetracker website run by the Ministry of Justice says the case has been listed for a hearing on for permission to appeal 8 May in front of a three-judge panel consisting of Lord Justice Maurice Kay, Vice President of the Court of Appeal Civil Division, Lord Justice Etherton, and Lord Justice Aikens.
Coulson’s original application for permission to appeal was refused, on the papers, by Sir Richard Buxton, a former Lord Justice, on 14 February.
Coulson reportedly put his detached south London house on the market for GBP1.6 million after the original ruling in December in which Justice Supperstone rejected his bid and ordered him to pay NGN’s costs.
His lawyers had argued that a clause in his severance deal meant NGN should pay professional costs and expenses incurred by him “in defending allegations of criminal conduct” during his tenure as editor.
In July last year Coulson, who had resigned as Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications director the previous January, and who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, was arrested then bailed by officers from Operation Weeting, the Metropolitan Police investigation into phone-hacking at the News of the World.
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