Lindgren, Trading as Naval Production v Jetcat Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Jersey
• Court: Judicial Greffe (Jersey)
• Judge: Le Cornu, Judicial Greffier:
• Judgment Date: 16 October 1984
• Date: 16 October 1984

JUDICIAL GREFFE

Le Cornu, Judicial Greffier:

M.C. St. J. Birt for the plaintiff;

P. de C. Mourant for the defendant.

Cases cited:

(1) Crane, Re, Royal Ct. (1960), 1 P.D. 186; 1959-63 T.D. 74, unreported, followed.

(2) Official Solicitor v. Clore, 1983 J.J. 43; on appeal, 1984 J.J. 81, considered.

(3) Procon (G.B.) Ltd. v. Provincial Bldg. Co. Ltd., [1984] 1 W.L.R. 557; [1984] 2 All E.R. 368; (1984), 128 Sol. Jo. 265, applied.

Civil Procedurecostssecurity for costssecurity required of plaintiff to be based on defendant's party and party costs in Jersey, i.e. solicitor and client costs to be notionally reduced by one-third, and costs of English lawyers concerning matters of Jersey law to be disregardedamount of security in discretion of court depending on particular circumstances of case

The defendant company applied for an order requiring the plaintiff to give security for costs.

The plaintiff did not dispute that the order should be made but contested the amount of the security to be given. It was agreed that the security should be in respect of costs to be incurred to the close of discovery, with leave to the defendant to apply for additional security after discovery.

The defendant gave evidence of solicitor and client costs actually incurred to date amounting to 14,566, of which 12,090 had been incurred by English solicitors and counsel instructed by the defendant's advocates. It maintained that it was immaterial whether the work was done in Jersey or elsewhere provided that a Jersey advocate was in charge of the case, and that it was important in principle that Jersey litigants should be able to recover the costs of the services of English lawyers instructed by advocates in the Island. The defendant estimated that the total relevant costs would be in the order of 15,000 and submitted that the normal practice was to fix the amount of security at two-thirds of the estimated costs, i.e. at 10,000 in the present case.

The plaintiff submitted that (a) it was proper, in an action involving only Jersey law, to disregard the fees of the English lawyers instructed by the defendant and to fix the amount of security on the basis of the costs incurred by the defendant's advocates in Jersey; (b) the conventional approach required the security to be fixed as a proportion of the defendant's party and party costs, i.e. the defendant's actual Jersey costs should be reduced by a notional one-third to bring them to the level of party and party...