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Costs climb for expelled lawyer, colleagues behind controversial firm
An ousted solicitor and his colleagues had another $20,000 added to the bill for their lengthy vendetta against a legal disciplinary board.
Naomi Neilson
People Shop’s Peter Ansell, Shivesh Kuksal and Lulu Xu were ordered to pay costs of above $20,000 to the Victorian Legal Services Board, which was forced to defend itself in proceedings that have been found to be “unreasonable”, embarrassing, and unnecessary.
The proceedings began with an originating motion filed in September 2020 in which Ansell, Kuksal, and Xu sought extensive relief against the disciplinary board, an auditor, an investigator and an external manager of People Shop, which traded as Erudite Legal.
Kuksal owned People Shop, Xu was director and company secretary, and Ansell – the only one to hold legal qualifications but who has since been restricted from practising – was the sole director since October 2022.
Over the last few years, and on top of vigorously fighting for their originating motion, Ansell, Kuksal, and Xu made countless recusal applications, submitted several conspiracy allegations, and challenged the board’s decision not to renew Ansell’s practising certificate.
Last November, Justice Peter Gorton of the Victorian Supreme Court struck out all but one of the 93 grounds contained within the originating motion. In the most recent judgment, published earlier this week, Justice Gorton found the board was entitled to costs.
Justice Gorton found the originating motion and summons were created “in such a way as to constitute an effort to embark on a judicial inquiry into nearly all aspects of the plaintiffs’ dealings with the board and those whom the board appointed, rather than seeking to have determined an identified legal controversy”.
“The majority of the grounds contained in the originating motion and summons were embarrassing in the legal sense,” he added.
“The plaintiffs also sought declarations in order later to rely upon them, either directly or as some form of issue estoppel, to obtain secondary relief in separate proceedings. I held this to be an abuse of process and that there was no real prospect the court would grant such declarations.”
Justice Gorton concluded Ansell, Kuksal and Xu “acted unreasonably”.
As evidence of their submissions, they were unlikely to recover costs of any taxation; the board showed the court a letter of demand addressed to each Ansell, Kuksal, and Xu seeking payment of previous costs orders made against them.
Those costs orders include $9,480 and $5,189 on two dates in September 2023, an order for $14,464 in February 2024, and a further $19,040 in March 2024. The board’s letter has gone unanswered.
Based on this evidence, Justice Gorton said there was a “real prospect” the board would be unable to recover, or will have difficulty recovering, the costs of any taxation. He opted to fix costs.
For the board’s costs of preparing four lots of submissions and appearing on five occasions, Justice Gorton ordered Ansell, Kuksal, and Xu to pay the costs of their application by summons.
This included the sum of $21,815.27 for filing fees, counsel fees for appearances on three occasions, fees for drawing submissions, transcript fees and for hearing the ruling delivered last November.
The case is Kuksal v Victorian Legal Services Board (Costs) [2025] VSC 48 (18 February 2025).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
