Figures released on Hansard reveal that fees for the work reached £735m by mid-April, with Thompsons Solicitors and Beresfords Solicitors taking the biggest individual shares.
Thompsons is the most significant biller to date, raking in £141.8m for its work, while Beresfords Solicitors billed £140.7m.
The fees were detailed in a written response by Lord Bach, a Government justice spokesman, on 24 April to questions raised by Lord Lofthouse of Pontefract. They show the fees received by the 10 largest billing firms to that date for work on the Government-backed compensation scheme for sick miners who are suffering from lung disease or vibration white finger.
In addition to the firm-specific totals, Beresfords’ limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts filed with Companies House last month for the year ending September 2006 show that the firm’s head, Jim Beresford, saw his share of the firm’s annual profits total £27.5m between 2004-06.
The LLP accounts also show that Beresfords was overpaid around £10m by the Government after a court ruling last April said the Department of Trade & Industry (now known as the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform) had overpaid a number of solicitors by around £100m in relation to certain miners’ cases.
Beresfords chief executive Mark Farrell said: “We would like to emphasise that fees payable to Beresfords for handling these cases were fixed by the Department of Trade & Industry following negotiations with the Claimant Solicitors Group, a national representative body.
“Exactly the same fee per case, dependent on the category, is paid to every participating solicitor in the
