The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court Civil Procedure Rules 2000 (as amended) (the "CPR") manifest a clear intention to create a comprehensive regime to ensure that there is at all times an address within the jurisdiction at which a party to proceedings may be served for so long as proceedings remain ongoing. There is however one potential gap in the rules where a legal practitioner is removed from acting for a party, but that party then does not appoint a new legal practitioner or serve a notice of acting as a litigant in person specifying an address for service within the jurisdiction. The question of where that party can then be served is not expressly answered by any provision of the CPR. Without an address for service, the other party may be left in difficulties in continuing to prosecute the claim.

The Court has recently given a helpful indication in an unreported decision in the case of Nokian Shina LLC v Andreai Vlaervich Smyshliaev & anor (BVIHCCOM 2020/0013) (the "Proceedings"), in which the Court was asked by the Claimant, in considering an application by the Defendants' legal practitioners to be removed from the record as acting, to order that service could continue to be effected by service on the former legal practitioner unless and until a new address for service within the jurisdiction was provided by the Defendants or new legal practitioners appointed. The Judge acknowledged that the CPR did not make express provision for service in such circumstances. Upon consideration, however, the Court concluded that the Claimant's alternative service application was not strictly necessary. As a matter of principle, in interpreting the CPR (in particular, CPR 3.11 and CPR 9.5(4)), the Claimant was in any event entitled to continue to serve documents via the former legal practitioners, as the address for service given by the Defendants in their acknowledgments of service and/or on the Defence, unless and until a new address for service in the jurisdiction was given. However, in the circumstances, notwithstanding that the Court considered that the CPR properly interpreted already contained a "general rule" as to service in this way, the Court was prepared to make express in an order that, notwithstanding the Defendants' legal practitioners being removed from the record, delivery to the former legal practitioners would constitute good service on the Defendants unless and until a new address was given or new legal practitioners appointed.

A similar application for removal from the record had been made by the Defendants' legal practitioners in the Court of Appeal in respect of an Appeal of a judgment in the Proceedings. Without filing a separate application in the Court of Appeal for alternative service, the Claimant filed submissions in relation to the application for removal from the record, addressing the decision made in the Court below and seeking that the Judge's order as to service be taken into consideration by the Court of Appeal when making any order for removal in the Appeal. The Court of Appeal, considering the matter on the papers, made no express findings as to the effect of the CPR with regard to service, but made an order in similar terms to that made by the Judge that delivery to the Defendants' former legal practitioners of documents in the appeal constitutes good service until a Notice of Acting (or Notice of Acting in Person) is filed on behalf of the Defendants.

Whilst the Judge's analysis during the hearing that the Claimant's application for alternative service was not strictly necessary is helpful, no written judgment on the relevant provisions of the CPR has yet been made and the "general rule" has to be taken from analysis of various provisions of the CPR looked at in the round, rather than being expressly stated in a rule or practice direction. In the circumstances, both the Judge at first instance and the Court of Appeal were content expressly to direct for service to be effected on the Defendants' former legal practitioners. It therefore appears that, until the practice is confirmed, where an application for removal from the record is made, the other parties may wish to seek express provision as to service at the same time, to avoid any doubt as to service and prevent any unnecessary delay and costs in prosecuting the claim following the removal.

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