Apr 2012
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
COURT OF APPEAL
BVI – S. 11 EASTERN CARIBBEAN SUPREME COURT ACT – RECEPTION PROVISIONS – EXTENT AND SCOPE OF THE APPLICATION OF ENGLISH LAW TO BVI CASES COMPANIES – WINDING UP – TRANSACTION APPROVAL PROCEEDING COSTS
This Appeal concerned the construction of Section 11 of the West Indies Associated States Supreme Court (Grenada) (the Supreme Court Act), a provision which, for the most part, duplicated in the Supreme Court Acts of the other eight Eastern Caribbean Territories.
The Court held that the English law intended to be imported by Section 11(1) of the Supreme Court Act is the procedural law administered in the High Court of Justice in England and not English substantive law, nor English procedural law which is adjectival and purely ancillary to English substantive law. The wording of Section 11(1) indicates that the focus on the importation of any law, rule or practice from England is in respect of the exercise of the jurisdiction as distinct from the importation of English law so as to give jurisdiction. Panacom International Inc. -v- Sunset Investments Ltd. and Another (1994) 47 WIR 139 followed; Dominica Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank -v- Mavis Williams Commonwealth of Dominica Civil Appeal No. 20 of 2005 (delivered 29 January 2007, unreported) distinguished.