Feb 2016
BERMUDA
SUPREME COURT
RULING ON APPLICATION TO RECONSIDER
This was a Ruling on an Application by the 2nd Defendant to reconsider the Court’s earlier grant of an Application for Summary Judgment to the Plaintiff pursuant to Order 14 of the Rules of the Supreme Court. The Application was not opposed on its merits by the Second Defendant, whose counsel gave no evidence in opposition to the merits of the Application, but rather advanced only the argument (without formal application in the proceedings) that Cox Hallett Wilkinson Limited should be restrained from acting for the Plaintiff because of conflicting interests with third parties that counsel for the Second Defendant did not represent. Kawaley CJ found that the Application was not properly before the Court. Further, in addition to the relevant complaint appearing to lack substance, the Second Defendant did not have standing to invoke third parties’ confidentiality rights. He suggested that the lack of coherent basis for opposition to the prior application on its merits was due to the fact that its sole purpose was to clothe the Joint Provisional Liquidators of the Plaintiff with the authority to exercise rights held by the Defendants with a view to recovering assets belonging to the Plaintiff.
Pursuant to the Application to reconsider in the present proceedings, counsel for the 2nd Defendant invited the Court to reconsider its decision due to the requirements in the application under Order 14 Rule 1 regarding the filing of a Statement of Claim. It was submitted in response by the Plaintiff that no prejudice flowed from a purely technical irregularity, and that under Order 2 Rule 1 of the Rules, non-compliance with the Rules does not nullify any steps in a civil action.