The Court of Appeal Affirms the Jurisdiction of the BVI court to Award Pre-Judgment Interest

In the recent Court of Appeal decision of Steadroy Matthews -v- Garna O’Neal, BVIHCVAP 2015/0019 ("Steadroy Matthews") the Court upheld an award of pre-judgment interest on general damages in a ruling which offered much needed clarity on the power of the Court to grant such relief. The uncertainty which befell this area was not least as a result of the 2009 decision of Bannister J in Ocean Conversion (BVI) Limited ("Ocean Conversion"), where the Learned Judge departed from the 1997 Court of Appeal decision of Alphonso -v- Ramnath and held instead that the BVI Court had no power to award pre-judgment interest absent a BVI statute directly conferring that jurisdiction. Click here for more.