April 06, 2026 court of first instance - Orders
Claim No: CFI 045/2025
THE DUBAI INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CENTRE COURTS
IN THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
BETWEEN
STELIAN GHEORGHE
Claimant/Appellant
and
(1) BSA AHMAD BIN HEZEEM & ASSOCIATES LLP
(2) JIMMY HAOULA
Defendants/Respondents
ORDER WITH REASONS OF H.E. JUSTICE SAPNA JHANGIANI
UPON the Judgment of H.E. Justice Sapna Jhangiani dated 28 October 2025, finding in favour of the Defendants on their application (the “Application”) and ordering the Claimant to pay the Defendants’ costs, to be immediately assessed on the standard basis (the “Judgment”)
AND UPON the First Defendant filing its Statement of Costs on 20 October 2025
AND UPON the Second Defendant filing his Statement of Costs on 3 November 2025
AND UPON the Order with Reasons of H.E. Justice Sapna Jhangiani dated 16 December 2025 immediately assessing the costs due to each Defendant and ordering such costs to be paid within 14 days (the “Order”)
AND UPON the Claimant’s Appeal Notice dated 27 January 2026 seeking permission to appeal the Order (the “Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal”)
AND UPON reviewing the Rules of the DIFC Courts (“RDC”)
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:
1. The Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal is refused.
2. There shall be no order as to costs.
Issued by:
Delvin Sumo
Assistant Registrar
Date of issue: 6 April 2026
At: 8am
SCHEDULE OF REASONS
Introduction
1. The Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal specifies that the Claimant appeals against the Order dated 16 December 2025. However, the Appeal Notice form provides against “Order Date” the date of “28-Oct-25”, which is the date of the Judgment in this matter. In the context of the remainder of the Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal, including the grounds of appeal, this is clearly an error.
2. Under the Court’s wide case management powers under RDC 4.2, I shall treat the Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal as an application for permission to appeal against my Order of 16 December 2025. In that Order, I ordered as follows:
(a) The First Defendant’s costs are immediately assessed in the sum of AED 137,000.00. The Claimant shall pay that sum to the First Defendant within 14 days.
(b) The Second Defendant’s costs are immediately assessed in the sum of AED 88,000.00. The Claimant shall pay that sum to the Second Defendant within 14 days.
3. The Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal is refused on the basis that none of the Grounds has a real prospect of success, and there is no other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard.
Grounds of Appeal
4. The Claimant has raised a number of grounds of appeal against the Order (the “Grounds”). The Grounds are set out verbatim below (with some reformatting) and shall be referred to by their sub-paragraph number:
“(1) Procedural Unfairness and Breach of Natural Justice
(i) The Court expressly relied upon the Appellant’s failure to file submissions in response to the Statements of Costs (Order, para. 7), yet proceeded to:
a. Resolve ambiguities and inconsistencies in the Respondents’ favour; and
b. Make assumptions as to cost-sharing and allocation.
(ii) This approach was procedurally unfair and contrary to the overriding objective under RDC 1.6, which requires the Court to ensure equality of arms and fairness between the parties.”
(iii) The absence of submissions from the Appellant did not relieve the Respondents of their burden to strictly prove recoverable costs, nor did it entitle the Court to cure evidential deficiencies by assumption.
(2) Failure to Apply the Burden of Proof under RDC 38.2
(i) Pursuant to RDC 38.2, the burden lies on the receiving party to demonstrate that costs were:
a. Reasonably incurred; and
b. Proportionate in amount.
(ii) The Court expressly found that the Respondents’ descriptions of expenses and disbursements were:
a. “Unclear and not entirely consistent” (Order, para. 9).
(iii) Notwithstanding that finding, the Court proceeded to assume:
a. Equal sharing of external counsel fees;
b. Justification for disbursements lacking proper explanation.
(iv) In doing so, the Court impermissibly reversed the burden of proof, contrary to RDC 38.2, and awarded costs that were not strictly proved.
(3) Misapplication of the “Broad-Brush” Approach to Defective Cost Claims
(i) The Court adopted a “broad-brush” discounting approach (Order, para. 10) to address defects in the Respondents’ costs claims.
(ii) However, a broad-brush approach may only be applied where costs are broadly established but require calibration — it cannot cure fundamental evidential or structural defects, including:
(iii) The Court erred in principle by discounting, rather than excluding, costs which failed to meet the evidential threshold required by RDC 38.23.
(4) Failure to Properly Reflect the Jurisdiction-Only Nature of the Proceedings
(i) The underlying proceedings were confined to a threshold jurisdictional objection, namely whether the DIFC Courts were the proper forum to determine the dispute.
(ii) No trial on the merits took place. No factual matrix was adjudicated. No substantive commercial issues were determined.
(iii) The Court nevertheless treated the matter as justifying:
(iv) This constitutes a misapplication of RDC 38.23(2)–(4), which require the Court to have regard to:
(v) Proper regard to the limited forensic scope of the jurisdictional pleadings would have led to a materially lower assessment, or to a direction for detailed assessment.
(5) Improper Duplication and Cross-Subsidisation of Costs Between Defendants
(i) The Second Respondent’s costs claim relied substantially on:
(ii) The Court failed to rigorously police duplication or prevent recovery of costs incurred:
(iii) This resulted in a real risk of double recovery, contrary to settled DIFC costs principles and RDC 38.23(1).
(6) Error in Ordering Immediate Assessment Rather than Detailed Assessment
(i) Given:
the Court erred in ordering immediate assessment, rather than directing a detailed assessment pursuant to the RDC.
(ii) Immediate assessment in these circumstances resulted in material prejudice to the Appellant and undermined confidence in the proportionality of the outcome.”
5. The Defendant has not issued a response to the Claimant’s Application for Permission to Appeal.
Permission to Appeal – Applicable Principles
6. RDC 44.117 provides:
“44.117 The Court of Appeal will allow an appeal from the decision of the Court of First Instance where the decision of the lower Court was:
(1) Wrong; or
(2) Unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings in the lower Court.”
7. RDC 44.5 requires that an appellant obtain permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal except where the appeal is against a committal order.
8. RDC 44.19 provides:
“44.19 Permission to appeal may only be given where the lower Court or the Appeal Court considers that:
(1) The appeal would have a real prospect of success; or
(2) There is some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard.”
9. Applying the test that the appeal would have a real prospect of success requires a prospective assessment. In short, an applicant must show that there is a real (i.e. realistic as opposed to fanciful) prospect of persuading an Appeal Court that the decision of the Court of First Instance was wrong, or that the decision was unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings. This requirement must be satisfied by the grounds of appeal advanced, and any submissions showing how it is contended that the learned Judge erred in her findings and decision. If this threshold is not met, there must be some other compelling reason why the appeal should be heard.
Court’s Decision
10. I address first the Claimant’s submission at Ground (6) that the Court erred in ordering immediate assessment rather than detailed assessment.
11. The Claimant contends that given the nature of the costs claimed by the Defendants, including inconsistencies and the absence of clarity in disbursements, the Court erred in ordering immediate assessment. Further, that immediate assessment resulted in material prejudice to the Claimant and undermined confidence in the proportionality of the outcome.
12. At the outset, it is important to note that under RDC 38.30(1), the general rule is that the Court should make an immediate assessment following any hearing that lasted less than one day. The hearing of the Application lasted less than one day, and there was no reason to depart from the general rule under RDC 38.30(1). The Judgment therefore ordered immediate assessment of the Defendants’ costs, and directed the filing of costs submissions to enable an immediate assessment to be made.
13. All the points raised by the Claimant relating to the nature of the costs claimed by the Defendants relate to costs submissions filed after the Judgment ordering immediate assessment of the Defendants’ costs. None of them can support a finding that the Court erred in ordering immediate assessment.
14. Likewise, the suggestion that the Claimant “suffered material prejudice” as a result of immediate assessment does not support a finding that the Court erred in ordering immediate assessment in accordance with RDC 38.30(1). There is also no basis to suggest that the ordering of immediate assessment of the Defendants’ costs in fact caused material prejudice to the Claimant or “undermined confidence in the proportionality of the outcome”.
15. In relation to Ground (4), proceedings before this Court as to the determination of jurisdictional questions can be complex and, as can be seen from the Judgment, the Application was no exception. I foresee no realistic prospect of an Appeal Court interfering with the Court’s finding at [8] of the Judgment that the skill, effort, knowledge and responsibility of the legal team deployed by the Defendants, as well as the time spent on the matter, was appropriate to the complexity of the matter. This is so notwithstanding that there was no trial or factual adjudication required in the determination of the Application.
16. In relation to Grounds (1), (2), (3) and (5):
(a) RDC 38.2 provides that, when assessing costs on a standard basis, the Court must be satisfied, having regard to all the circumstances, that the costs were proportionately and reasonably incurred, and were proportionate and reasonable in amount. The receiving party carries the burden of proof in satisfying the Court of these factors.
(b) Whilst the Court commented that the costs claimed by the First and Second Defendant were “unclear and not entirely consistent”, I do not foresee any prospect of an Appeal Court finding that any doubts were resolved in the Defendants’ favour such that duplicated costs were awarded to both Defendants and the burden of proof was reversed, as submitted by the Claimant.
(c) Both Defendants included in their Statement of Costs expenses and disbursements (as opposed to legal fees) of AED 130,737.00. The First Defendant claimed these expenses and disbursements related to “DIFC Court Fees and Counsel Fees” and the Second Defendant claimed that they related to “External Counsel fees”. The Judgment assumed that this discrepancy was an error. The First Defendant’s Statement of Costs claimed the amount of AED 130,737.00 in full, whilst the Second Defendant’s Statement of Costs referred to sharing 50% of these costs.
(d) As mentioned above, the Judgment found that the discrepancy between the Defendants’ descriptions of the expenses and disbursements which they claimed was clearly an error. In any event, whether the costs comprised DIFC Court or Counsel Fees, they were expenses and disbursements which were properly claimable by the Defendants upon costs being awarded to them when they succeeded in the Application, and were awarded their costs to be assessed on an immediate basis. Any doubt as to the amount to be awarded for this item of costs was resolved against the Defendants because the First Defendant was not awarded 100% of the AED 130,737.00 claimed as expenses and disbursements, but only 50%.
(e) There is no suggestion in the Judgment that the absence of submissions from the Claimant relieved the Defendants of their burden to strictly prove recoverable costs, and it is difficult to see how the burden of proof on the Defendants was reversed, as contended by the Claimant.
(f) The Second Defendant’s costs claim included costs claimed for work undertaken by a lawyer employed by the First Defendant, Mr Antonios Dimitrakopoulos. Mr Dimitrakopoulos conducted the litigation relating to the Application for each Defendant. The number of hours spent on the matter by Mr Dimitrakopoulos for each Defendant is entirely different, and there is no basis to suggest any overlap in the hours or costs claimed by each Defendant for his work.
(g) As set out at [10] of the Judgment, a “broadbrush” approach was adopted by the Court to immediately assessing the Defendants’ costs and applying an appropriate discount to the full costs claimed such that the costs recovered were both reasonable and proportionate in the context of the case, in accordance with RDC 38.2. There is no suggestion that a broadbrush approach was adopted by the Court “to address defects in the Respondents’ costs claims”, as contended by the Claimant.
(h) The approach upon immediate assessment of costs is necessarily broadbrush because of the nature of the exercise, in contrast to the approach taken upon a detailed assessment of costs. I do not foresee any prospect of an appeal court interfering with the Court’s discretionary assessment of what it considered reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances upon immediately assessing the Defendants’ costs of the Application.
