BVI Court dismisses jurisdiction challenges in NBT v Shishkhanov & Ors

On 22 November 2025 (published on 14 January 2026), Justice Mithani AG handed down judgment dismissing the jurisdiction challenges of four groups of Defendants to approx. US$2bn civil fraud proceedings brought by the Claimant, NBT, in the BVI.

The judgment follows a 5-day hearing in October 2025 in which the four separately represented groups of Defendants advanced their challenges on broadly four grounds concerning (i) the necessary or proper party gateway, and/or tort gateway, (ii) forum, (iii) discretion, and (iv) the duty of full and frank disclosure. The Judge found in favour of NBT on all of these issues. A number of further issues as to whether certain of these Defendants have been properly served and as to extensions of time for service of the Claim Form have been hived-off to be addressed at a separate hearing in future.

The judgment is likely to be of greatest interest to practitioners on the sub-issue within the necessary and proper party gateway of whether there is a real issue that it is “reasonable for the Court to try”. This has to date been considered in a number of English and BVI decisions including that of the English Court of Appeal in Erste Group Bank [2015] 1 CLC 706 (EWCA), and that of Wallbank J in the BVI in BTA v Sabyrbaev in December 2023 (itself presently on appeal). Although decided on its own particular facts, the judgment considers the state of the authorities to date in some detail.

Jamie Holmes acted* for the successful Claimant NBT as part of a team including Paul McGrath KC (Essex Court Chambers), Nathan Pillow KC (Essex Court Chambers), Ben Woolgar (Brick Court Chambers) and Benedict Tompkins (Essex Court Chambers), Avant-Garde Law Office and Orion.  Jamie was instructed by Mary-Frances Morris and Andrew Emery of Emery Cooke.

*Jamie was admitted to the Bar of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in the Territory of the Virgin Islands (‘BVI’) on the final day of the hearing.

Read the full judgment