Rebekah Vardy has been ordered to pay Coleen Rooney another £100,000 in the latest twist in their Wagatha Christie libel battle - with a total settlement to be decided next year.
Barristers for the two have been back in court in a dispute over legal costs after Leicester City forward Jamie Vardys wife Rebekah lost her High Court claim against Coleen, who is married to ex-England captain Wayne Rooney, in 2022.
It followed Coleen accusing her fellow WAG of leaking private information about her to the Press, with today marking five years since the viral post at the centre of the row.
Rebekah, 42, was later intructed to pay 90 per cent of 38-year-old Coleens fees, with an initial payment of £800,000, but has been challenging the claimed £1.8million costs.
At the end of the latest hearing, which began on Monday, senior costs judge Andrew Gordon-Saker has now told Rebekah to pay an extra £100,000 within 21 days.
Coleen Rooney, pictured attending Nordoff Robbins Legends of Football event at JW Grosvenor House in London on Monday, has won another legal victory over Rebekah Vardy
Rebekah Vardym seen outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London in May 2022, has now been ordered to pay Coleen Rooney another £100,000 in their Wagatha Christie libel battle
He said: I think there is some scope for a further payment on account so the defendant (Mrs Rooney) is not kept out of her costs, and I think that should be no more than £100,000.
The hearing, which neither woman attended, dealt with several preliminary issues before a full line-by-line assessment of costs takes place at a later date, which will decide the overall amount of money to be paid.
Judge Gordon-Saker said this could take place in early 2025, but added: The parties need to get on with this and put it behind them.
He said: Realistically, it (the line-by-line assessment) is probably going to be next year, hopefully early next year.
In 2019, Coleen publicly claimed Mrs Vardys account was the source behind three stories in the Sun newspaper featuring fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile.
These covered her travelling to Mexico for a gender selection procedure, plans to return to TV and the basement flooding at her home.
After the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Coleens favour in July 2022, finding the post was substantially true.
The judge said that it was likely that Rebekahs agent Caroline Watt had passed information to the newspaper. and that the Leicester stars wife knew of and condoned this behaviour.
Coleen Rooney is pictured here with her husband Wayne, former England and Manchester United striker, at Nordoff Robbins Legends of Football event in London on Monday
Rebekah Vardy, pictured with husband Jamie outside the Royal Courts of Justice in May 2022, was accused of sharing private information about Coleen Rooney with the Sun newspaper
Coleen Rooney was seen smiling today after a gym workout session, after inflicting another court defeat on Rebekah Vardy over her £1.8million Wagatha Christie legal bills
The wife of Wayne Rooney has faced a stressful past week, after being dragged back to court by Rebekah, who wants to halve a £1.8million legal bill she faces
At the latest hearing, Rebekahs representative Jamie Carpenter KC said in written submissions that Coleens claimed legal bill ran to £1,833,906.89, which was more than three times her agreed costs budget of £540,779.07.
He said the bill was drawn without sufficient care and had a kitchen sink approach, and included over £120,000 of costs to which Mrs Rooney has no entitlement.
But Robin Dunne, for Coleen, said in his written submissions that Mrs Vardy had shown deplorable conduct in the case and that costs could have been lower if she conducted this litigation appropriately.
He added: It sits ill in Mrs Vardys mouth to now claim that Mrs Rooneys costs, a great deal of which were caused directly by her conduct, are unreasonable.
Rebekah has been demanding a 50 per cent cut in the £1.8million settlement, as it was alleged that Coleen was charging for a lawyers stay at a five-star Nobu Hotel.
Rebekahs lawyers argued that the opposing legal teams estimate of their costs for expenses including a luxury hotel and a hotly disputed minibar tab was deliberately misleading and that this warranted a reduction in the amount she had to pay.
But yesterday saw Coleen score another win over her rival, as as a judge ruled the bill had been legitimately incurred.
Coleens barrister Mr Dunne insisted, There has been no misconduct, and that it was illogical to say that we misled anyone.
In 2019, Coleen (pictured in May 2022) publicly claimed Rebekah Vardys was the source behind three stories featuring fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile
Rebekah, 42, piciured here at Leicester Citys King Power Stadium in May 2022, was later ordered to pay 90 per cent of 38-year-old Coleens fees, with an initial payment of £800,000
Rebekah, seen here arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice in London in May 2022, has been demanding a 50 per cent cut in the £1.8million settlement
Wayne and Coleen Rooney, pictured leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London in May 2022, have been given another boost by this weeks High Court ruling
Lawyers for Rebekah Vardy, seen here outside the High Court in May 2022, have been challenging the legal bill with which she was landed after losing her libel case
Her legal team denied claims their spending on the case was extravagant, and attacked reports surrounding one of her lawyers staying at the Nobu Hotel, an A-list celebrity favourite.
They told the High Court that the hotel stay had been falsely painted as a decadent scene from Caligula, but was secured for around the price of a room at a Premier Inn.
In a ruling yesterday, the judge Mr Gordon-Saker found on balance and, I have to say, only just, that Coleens legal team had not committed wrongdoing, and therefore it was not appropriate to reduce her legal bill.
He said that while there was a failure to be transparent, it was not sufficiently unreasonable or improper to constitute misconduct.
Barristers for Rebekah told the High Court in written submissions that some of Coleens legal costs were extraordinary, including money for a lawyer staying at the Nobu Hotel, incurring substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as minibar charges.
But Mr Dunne said that one of Coleens solicitors only stayed at the hotel due to a problem with their original booking elsewhere.
The court heard Coleens solicitor Paul Lunt, a partner at the Liverpool-based law firm Brabners, stayed at Nobu during the nine-day libel battle with Rebekah in 2022.
Mr Dunne told the court: [The solicitor] did not book the Nobu Hotel. He booked a modest hotel but on the first night of staying there did not have any working WiFi or shower.
Wayne and Coleen Rooney are pictured outside the High Court in May 2022
Rebekah Vardy, seen at Leicester Citys King Power Stadium last October as her husband Jamie and his side took on Stoke City, is facing a hefty legal bill following the Coleen dispute
Lawyers for Coleen Rooney (pictured) this week accused Rebekah Vardy of deplorable conduct in their long-running Wagatha Christie row
Rebekahs lawyers argued that the opposing legal teams estimate of their costs for expenses including a luxury hotel and a hotly disputed minibar tab was deliberately misleading and that this warranted a reduction in the amount she had to pay - pictured is the Nobu Hotel London
He was offered to stay at the Nobu by the defendants agent, who has a preferential rate.
He added that the food and minibar tab ran up to £225, but said the minibar tab ran to £7, and ran to two bottles of water.
The barrister continued that the solicitor paid £295 per night to stay at the hotel when going rates are more than £600 a night.
Neither Coleen nor Rebekah have been attending the latest High Court hearing and Coleen was seen this morning smiling as she left a gym in Alderley Edge, Cheshire.