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(f)
The court's general discretion as to interest
The position in relation to plaintiffs and the award of additional interest is different. It
is the Working Party's view that to qualify for an award of additional interest –
potentially at base rate plus 10% on the sum awarded
– the plaintiff should be required
to meet the sanctioned offer requirements. If his offer does not meet those
requirements, it will be taken into account in the exercise of the court's general
discretion for awarding costs, perhaps supporting an order for costs at a higher rate of
taxation. However, it would not qualify the plaintiff for an award of additional
interest by reason of his having achieved a better-than-offered result at the trial.
The court has a statutory discretion to award interest under s 48 of the HCO which
provides that the court may award :-
"...... simple interest, at such rate as the Court thinks fit or as rules of court may provide, on
all or any part of the debt or damages in respect of which judgment is given, or payment is
made before judgment, for all or any part of the period between the date when the cause of
action arose and-
(a)
in the case of any sum paid before judgment, the date of the payment; and
(b)
in the case of the sum for which judgment is given, the date of the judgment."
However, that statutory power's overriding purpose is to compensate the successful
plaintiff for being kept out of his money.
It is true that the section provides for an
award of interest covering "any part of the period" in question, so that it might in
theory be possible for the court to award additional interest in respect of the period
after the defendant ought to have accepted the plaintiff's offer. But making such an
offer does not bear on the amount lost by the plaintiff by virtue of his being kept out of
his money and in the Working Party's view, the purposes of s 48 do not extend to
as enabling Part 36-type additional interest payments to be awarded in respect of
settlement offers which do not qualify as sanctioned offers.
Notes
See HKCP 2002, F1/48/1 and 6/L/10-28.
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