January 20, 2009 court of first instance - Orders,Orders
Case No. CFI 008/2007
THE JUDICIAL AUTHORITY OF THE DUBAI INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRE
IN THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
BEFORE JUSTICE SIR ANTHONY COLMAN
Between
| ITHMAR CAPITAL | Claimant |
| and8 INVESTMENT INC | 1st Defendant |
| and8 INVESTMENT GROUP FZE | 2nd Defendant |
RULING ON APPLICATION TO ADJOURN HEARING OF APPLICATIONS FIXED FOR 20 JANUARY 2009
I do feel very strongly that the amount of time which the Court ought to apply for the purposes of encouraging settlement has really got to have some sort of limits attached to it and those limits have clearly got to be fashioned with regard to the availability of Judge time and Court facilities.
At the moment I am not persuaded that it will be appropriate to apply the Court facilities of video conferencing set up for a hearing which may last more than half a day or certainly 3½ hours or something of that sort where the parties, as it seems to me, can if they really put their minds to it, get to the point over the next two days where they must be able to know whether there is a very strong chance of settlement and that it is highly probable that a hearing wont be necessary or that any further hearings will definitely not be necessary.
My approach is that the Court facilities for an adjourned hearing are available from not before noon on Thursday and they have to be used if the parties want to deploy those facilities for the purpose of handling any further matters that have to be resolved.
Accordingly, the Order which I now make is that these applications will be adjourned until not before 12 noon on Thursday when the parties must be prepared to have those matters argued out. I say nothing about determined because that matter, the question of determination, can be adjourned to enable the parties to have a better chance of settling the case if they have not already done so. The matter must be argued out, as I see it, when the Court facilities are available. They are available from about 12 noon on Thursday and that's when there will be a hearing for that purpose. If the parties don't use them at that time, and the case has not settled, or is not highly probable to settle, then serious consideration will have to be given as to whether all the applications that are outstanding should be struck out under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court. That's all. Not before 12 noon on Thursday.
Justice Sir Anthony Colman
Date of issue: 20 January 2009
At 2pm
