Court throws out case against BSP

THE Waigani National Court has dismissed a case in which the plaintiffs claimed damages from Bank South Pacific for selling their property back in 2002.
Justice Royale Thompson granted BSP’s application to dismiss the proceedings and declared the plaintiffs, Wesley Hui and Jimm Trading Limited, as “vexatious litigants”, which means the plaintiffs persistently filed proceedings on the same matter but did not have sufficient grounds to do so.
“Since 2002, the litigants (Hui and Jimm Trading Ltd) have issued proceedings and sued the same defendant (BSP) repeatedly, in reliance on essentially the same causes of action, which have little or no basis in law and which are now time-barred,” she said.
“Since their first proceedings were struck out or dismissed, the litigants have issued another nine proceedings, and this is a clear indication that unless prevented by the court, they will continue to issue further similar proceedings against the defendant.”
Thompson said the previous dismissals did not prevent them from bringing in fresh proceedings, however the proceedings should be valid with a reasonable cause of action and not repeats of the earlier unsuccessful ones.
Thompson said a vexatious litigant order was necessary to prevent further vexatious proceedings unless the plaintiffs obtained leave of the court by showing that they had an arguable case.
The matter started as the then PNG Banking Corporation wanted to sell a property belonging to Jimm Trading Ltd. PNGBC was then privatised to BSP in 2001. Jimm Trading brought the Privatisation Commission to court in 2002, seeking to restrain the sale and Hui sued BSP, claiming damages for loss.