THE Court of Appeal has ordered an ex-Cepep contractor to pay the Cepep Company's costs.

In a written ruling, the court upheld the High Court’s decision to grant a stay of proceedings in the dispute between Eastman Enterprise Ltd and the Cepep Company Ltd, ruling unanimously that the state company remained the successful party on the substantive stay application.

Justices of Appeal Peter Rajkumar, James Aboud and Ricky Rahim found that while Eastman Enterprise succeeded in challenging the trial judge’s separate order to refer documents to the Director of Public Prosecutions, that issue was limited in scope and did not materially affect the main question of whether the stay should have been granted.