September 17, 2026 Court of First Instance - Orders
Claim No: CFI 039/2025
THE DUBAI INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRE COURTS
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
BETWEEN
EMIRATES NBD BANK PJSC
Claimant
and
(1) RASHED ABULAZIZ ALMAKHAWI
(2) ABDULAZIZ RASHED ABDULAZIZ MOHAMMED ALMAKHAWI
(3) HESSA RASHED ABULAZIZ ALMAKHAWI
(4) SHAMMA RASHED ABULAZIZ ALMAKHAWI
Defendants
ORDER WITH REASONS OF H.E. CHIEF JUSTICE WAYNE MARTIN
UPON the Order with Reasons of H.E. Chief Justice Wayne Martin dated 2 July 2026 (the “Order”)
AND UPON the Second Defendant’s Statement of Costs and submissions dated 13 August 2026
AND UPON the Claimant’s submissions in reply dated 27 August 2026
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:
1. In accordance with paragraph 7 of the Order, the Claimant’s costs to be paid by the Second Defendant are quantified in the amount of USD 10,134.33.
2. If that amount is not paid in full within twenty-one (21) days of the date of this Order, any amount outstanding will accrue interest at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of this Order.
Issued by:
Delvin Sumo
Assistant Registrar
Date of issue: 17 September 2026
At: 2pm
SCHEDULE OF REASONS
1. On 2 July 2026, the Court ordered that the Second Defendant’s Renewed Application for Permission to Appeal, and various procedural applications made in connection with that Application should each be dismissed and further ordered the Second Defendant to pay the Claimant’s costs of each Application to be assessed on the standard basis by a process of immediate assessment following the exchange of a Statement of Costs and submissions.
2. In accordance with those directions, the Claimant (the “Bank”) served a Statement of Costs identifying the practitioners who had worked on the matter, their hourly charge rates and the time spent on various categories of work specified in the standard form costs statement and claiming a disbursement in respect of counsel’s fees in the amount of USD 5,104.83. The total amount claimed is USD 10,134.33.
3. The Statement of Costs was accompanied by a letter from the Bank’s lawyers in which it was asserted that the costs claimed were inclusive of all time spent on both the Second Defendant’s Initial Application for Permission to Appeal and the Renewed Application to the Court of Appeal, time spent on an application which was determined by H.E. Justice Black to be costs in the proposed appeal and another application upon which the Bank had reserved its position.
4. The Second Defendant served eight pages of submissions in which objection was taken to the amount claimed by the Bank. The substantive objections were:
(a) The claim included time spent on matters other than the applications in respect of which costs were ordered by the Court of Appeal;
(b) Of the two Applications in respect of which costs were ordered by the Court of Appeal, the Bank has not allocated time as between them; and
(c) Senior Counsel’s fee, which is a little over half the bill, is unsupported by a fee note, hours, hourly rate or description of the work done.
Lengthy submissions were provided in support of each ground of objection.
5. The Bank served submissions in reply in which it was submitted that its claims were modest based on heavily discounted hourly rates and further costs had now been incurred in responding to the lengthy submissions provided by the Second Defendant.
6. The Bank submitted that when costs are being assessed on an immediate basis, a broad brush approach was appropriate. However, it provided a detailed breakdown of the work performed by reference to the Initial Application for Permission to Appeal, the Ancillary Application and the costs of preparing a Statement of Costs and costs submissions. That breakdown included a breakdown of counsel’s fees. The Bank submitted that it is not double recovering any costs previously ordered and provides cogent reasons in support of that proposition.
7. The Bank claimed an additional USD 4,660.50 in respect of the additional costs incurred responding to the Second Defendant’s submissions.
Analysis and conclusion
8. This Court discourages issues with respect to costs turning into satellite litigation, assuming a life of its own and consuming disproportionate amounts of time and cost. The process of immediate assessment is designed to reduce that risk.
9. However, the process requires the party claiming costs to provide a sufficient amount of information to identify the matters in respect of which costs are being claimed and to provide particulars of the manner in which the amount has been calculated.
10. In this case, the Bank’s initial Statement of Costs and accompanying submissions did not satisfy that objective. Reference was made to the costs including costs in respect of matters not the subject of the costs orders made by the Court of Appeal, without any identification of the quantum of the amount claimed in respect of those matters. Further, no indication whatever was given of the work done by Senior Counsel or of the time spent or hourly rate charged. As that amount comprised approximately 50% of the claim, further information with respect to those matters should have been provided.
11. The objections taken by the Second Defendant were justified by reason of the lack of information provided by the Bank. However, the appropriate points could have been made much more succinctly and were unnecessarily laboured.
12. The Bank’s reply provided the information which could and should have been provided with the initial Statement of Costs and submissions. If that information had been provided, there is a reasonable prospect that there would have been no objection from the Second Defendant, or that the objection would have been much narrower in compass. For these reasons, I will not allow the Bank’s claim for the preparation of its submissions in reply.
13. Those submissions do however explain and justify the amount claimed by the Bank which is reasonable having regard to the work done. For these reasons, the Bank’s claims will be quantified in the amount claimed in the initial Statement of Costs – namely, USD 10,134.33.
