Solomon & Co (St Helena) plc v Attorney General of Ascension Island

Catherine Callaghan QC acted for the Ascension Island Government in successfully striking out claims brought against it in the Supreme Court of St Helena. 

The Claimant, which operated the sole Fuel Station on Ascension Island, had brought claims against AIG for malicious falsehood, misfeasance in public office, breach of contract, and unlawful interference with economic interests, arising out of AIG’s actions in serving statutory notices on the Claimant in 2017 requiring it to address health and safety issues at the Fuel Station. AIG successfully argued that the malicious falsehood claim was statute-barred and that no contract existed between the parties, so that those claims should be dismissed on a point of law under the Ascension Civil Procedure Rules. AIG also successfully argued that all of the claims should be struck out as disclosing no reasonable cause of action and as amounting to an abuse of process, in that the claims were an attempt to circumvent time limits under a statutory appeal process. 

The Judgment of Chief Justice Charles Ekins was handed down on 1 February 2021. Please find the full version here.