The BVI Commercial Court has just provided guidance on wasted
costs principles and their application to the duties of an
applicant's legal practitioner on an ex parte application. This
guidance was provided in a judgment delivered on 6 June 2017 in
I U Chong aka Yao Yong & Anor v Greater Achieve Limited
& Ors BVIHC (Com) 2015/0140.
The application for an order that the claimants' legal
practitioners, Harney Westwood & Riegels ("Harneys")
pay wasted costs arose out of the grant and subsequent discharge of
an injunction in proceedings in which the Statement of Claim was
subsequently struck out as disclosing no cause of action and for
abuse of process.
The court concluded that in only one of the complaints advanced
in support of the application was Harneys in breach of its duty to
the court but that the causal link between that breach and the
applicants' costs was not sufficiently strong; and accordingly
the breach did not give rise to a wasted costs order. In
