A. Company v K. Ltd (Practice Note)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS |
| Judgment Date | 08 July 1987 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1987] EWCA Civ J0708-1 |
| Docket Number | 87/0656 |
| Date | 08 July 1987 |
[1987] EWCA Civ J0708-1
The Master of the Rolls
(Sir John Donaldson)
87/0656
IN CHAMBERS
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
Royal Courts of Justice
MR D. V. A. C. P. DA SILVA, instructed by Messrs Constant & Constant, appeared for the Applicants (Plaintiffs).
MR M. S. HOWARD, instructed by Messrs Ince & Co., appeared for the Respondents (Defendants).
This is an appeal from a decision of Mr Registrar Adams on an application for security for costs in the sum of £19,960. The application is made in an appeal against a judgment by Mr Justice Hirst given in March 1986 in which he awarded the plaintiffs a sum which, according to my calculations, is of the order of US $2.6 million against the first defendant, which is a foreign company. The learned Registrar refused the application solely on the grounds that it is made far too late. Mr Da Silva submits that that is wrong in principle.
The dates are really rather startling. The appeal was set down on 8th May 1986. It was added to the list of forthcoming appeals on 16th June of that year and to the warned list on 28th August. The estimated duration of the appeal is some two to three days. On 22nd December of last year a hearing date was fixed for 22nd July next, that is to say in about fourteen days' time. The application for security was made on 2nd July, i.e. only twenty days before the hearing. Indeed there was no letter before application requesting security before 29th June.
Mr Registrar Adams, not unnaturally, sought some explanation for this delay, and was told that up to August 1986 there was some doubt as to whether the plaintiff might not succeed by a sidewind in that the first defendant would find his appeal struck out for failure to comply with the Rules requiring the lodgment of appeal bundles. It is also said that at some stage there had been without prejudice discussions. The evidence as to when those occurred is scanty in the extreme. In any event I do not for my part understand why the existence of without prejudice discussions should excuse the failure to make an application for security for costs if the intention was to make one at all. It might have some bearing on the amount for which security was given, but no more than that.
Thirdly it is said that the appeal bundles are not yet in order. That, I am bound to say, caused me some surprise, because we have an internal checking system in the Civil Appeals Office, and they were apparently satisfied that the appeal bundles were in order before the appeal was put in the warned list. Unfortunately they were wrong about that. It appears that they were misled by the size of the bundles and it never occurred to the clerk who was going through them that they could all contain pleadings. That appears to be the case—there would be some additional documents which have to be added. That would be relevant if it meant that there was no possibility of holding the date for the appeal, but that has not been suggested.
We therefore have the position that this appeal has been on the...
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Cameron v Barbados Today Inc.
...and that an order may be refused because of lateness ( PR Records Ltd. v Vinvl 2000 Ltd. [2002] EWHC 2860. (Ch). In A Co. v K Ltd. [1987] 1 WLR 1655 an application for security was dismissed solely because of lateness. Peter Gibson IA in Kean, Developments v Tarmac Construction (supra) agre......
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Dean Thompson and Others v Patrick Thompson and Everton Eucal Smith
...and that ‘lateness may of itself be a reason for refusing an order’. To make the same point, Miss Jordan also referred me to A. Co. v K. Ltd [1987] 3 All ER 377, 377-8, in which Sir John Donaldson MR observed that an respondent ‘is entitled to know at an early stage whether he is going to h......
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Mioko Sakurada Louvet v Louis Aristide Charles Louvet And Another
...as in the Court of Appeal in England, "... time is of the essence ... in all respects …" per Sir John Donaldson MR in A Co v K Ltd [1987] 1 WLR 1655 at p 1656. But in considering whether the Court will accept an appeal at all I think it right to adopt the approach of Lord Greene MR In re Be......
