EUPillar Nike European Operations Netherlands B.V. v Tomas Rosicky [2007] EWHC 1967 (Ch)

Summary

Parties to the proceedings were Nike and Tomas Rosicky. The defendant had agreed to wear exclusively Nike products for a specified period of time. The contract included a Dutch jurisdiction clause, and the action was to be commenced there. The defendant was resident or domiciled in England, where he played for Arsenal. An application for a provisional measure was made to the English court. The effect of the injunction was to prevent the defendant from wearing Puma marked boots. The injunction was granted by the English High Court. In this context, Mr Justice Patten noted: “27 In summary the position therefore is this: the English court, in my judgment, has jurisdiction to grant an interim injunction pursuant to s, 25 of the Act in support of the Dutch proceedings as and when they are issued. So far as that is concerned, the Dutch action is about to be commenced and an undertaking is offered to issue at short notice an application for parallel interlocutory relief in the Dutch proceedings. The difficulty, however, which the claimant says it faces is that according to Mr. Meijboom the Dutch court takes, under normal circumstances, considerably longer to process an application for interim relief than the court here in England. In the first of his two witness statements he suggests that even if an interim application were to be commenced almost at once it would be unlikely to result in a judgment much before the end of October or early November. So far as the substantive proceedings themselves are concerned, his estimate is that they could take the best part of two years to resolve. “46 […] it seems to me that preserving the status quo for what is likely to be a relatively limited period of time must be to preserve the situation as it subsisted up to the beginning of June, namely with the defendant continuing to wear Nike products, including Nike football boots. The Puma agreement of course came into being on 5th July, but as far as that is concerned there has so far been no wide-scale use of their products. 47 If the injunction is granted for a limited period over the effective hearing of the Dutch interim proceedings, then all that will happen is that the defendant will not be able to wear Puma boots for that limited period of time and the advertising campaign will have to be postponed. If, on the other hand, the injunction is refused, then there will be a change of sponsor so far as the boots are concerned, together with the publicity, and that, in my judgment, will cause more damage than is likely to be caused by granting the injunction at this stage. 48 The only other matter which I think I have to consider is whether or not the fact that this is an application made in support of proceedings in the Netherlands in some way alters the approach that I would have taken were it solely a domestic dispute. One of the differences, and perhaps the most obvious difference, is that the court does not have the option of ordering a speedy trial. The only jurisdictional power which I have is simply to deal with this until the Dutch court itself makes an interim order. 49 However, there is, I think, a rough although not complete analogy between what would be a speedy trial in this jurisdiction and what I hope will be a speedy hearing of the interim application in Holland.” [46-9].