Oct 2026
Conyers is delighted to have secured a full win for our client Grove Services, Inc. in its defence of an appeal before the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal in Joint Stock Company “BTA Bank” v Saduakas Mamesh & Ors (BVIHCMAP2024/0008). Judgment was handed down on 8 October 2026.
The decision is a clear reminder that the BVI courts will look closely at attempts to found jurisdiction over foreign parties through shell anchor defendants. It also confirms that the appellate court will be slow to interfere with a first-instance judge’s careful evaluative judgment.
BTA Bank claimed it had lost around US$230 million through an alleged letters of credit fraud. It sued 54 defendants in the BVI. To bring in foreign commodity traders such as Grove, the Bank relied on BVI special purpose vehicles that had been dissolved years earlier and restored to the register shortly before it issued the claim. Grove, alongside some of the world’s largest commodity traders, applied to set aside the service out order in December 2022. In December 2023, Wallbank J sitting in the BVI Commercial Court granted the set-aside applications, finding no jurisdiction over the foreign defendants. The Bank appealed.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the Bank’s appeal in full. As a consequence, the service out order and service of the claim on Grove stay set aside, and the BVI court has no jurisdiction to hear the claim against Grove. The Bank must also pay Grove’s costs of the appeal, in addition to the costs order made below.
Grove argued that the Bank’s attempt to bring it into the BVI failed on every ground. In particular, Grove argued that the authority the Bank relied on, Multinational Gas, does not make the anchor defendant’s finances or the claimant’s motive irrelevant in all cases, and in fact highlights the need for good faith when seeking permission to serve out. Grove also stressed the judge’s unchallenged findings that the Bank had not acted in good faith, and that the Bank’s disclosure failures were serious, deliberate and went to the heart of the jurisdiction application. The Court of Appeal accepted the respondents’ submissions on each issue.
The Court’s key findings were:
- Anchor defendants: The Bank did not show a real issue that was reasonable for the BVI court to try against the BVI SPVs. Because of that, the “necessary or proper party” gateway was not met. Defunct, assetless anchor defendants that play no part in the proceedings cannot be used as a device to bring in foreign defendants.
- Forum: The BVI was not clearly or distinctly the appropriate forum. The judge found the connection “merely tangential, or peripheral“, because the SPVs were only incorporated in the BVI and none of the witnesses were there.
- Full and frank disclosure: The Court upheld findings that the Bank’s non-disclosure at the ex parte hearing was material and deliberate. That included failing to cite the key adverse authorities, Erste and Gunn, which the judge called “inexcusable”. The Court described the duty as “a strict duty, rooted in fairness and the integrity of the judicial system“.
The Bank and the other respondents were represented by London KCs. Grove was represented by Conyers BVI partner Richard Evans, assisted by Associate Gráinne Hussey.