Success for Simon Hughes QC in the Privy Council
Date: 19 October 2020
Simon Hughes QC has been successful in the Privy Council, on behalf of National Stadium Project (Grenada) Corporation, with the appeal by NH International against the decision of the Court of Appeal in Trinidad & Tobago being dismissed.
This was a case where Simon was instructed after National Stadium had lost on all issues before Rajkumar J in 2011. Having successfully argued, before the Privy Council, that the Court of Appeal in Trinidad & Tobago was wrong to dismiss the appeal without a hearing on the merits, Simon then argued the substantive appeal before the Court of Appeal in 2018 and was successful. NH then appealed to the Privy Council, and the appeal was heard over 17 and 18 June 2020, on a virtual basis. Giving a joint judgment with which Lord Reed and Lord Lloyd-Jones agreed, Lord Briggs and Lord Sales dismissed the appeal (Lady Arden dissenting).
The principal issue on the appeal was whether, in the absence of a contractual relationship, NH could establish an interest in a substantial fund, based either on the existence of a trust in its favour or on the basis of rights acquired as assignee.
