Case number and/or case name
Thomas Cook Tour Operations Ltd (formerly Sunworld Ltd) v Kaya Turistic Tesisleri Otelcilik (Hotel Kaya) [2009] EWHC 720 (QB)
Summary
The claimant was selling package holidays to customers based in England. The defendant, a Turkish company, owned a hotel in Turkey. There was a contract between the claimant and defendant for the provision of rooms and hotel services for guest going on holiday to Turkey in 1997. Guest of the hotel suffered from food poisoning. They settled with the claimant.
The claimant brought the action in 2006 in England, invoking an English choice-of-court agreement. The claimant sought indemnity in respect of the claims made against him by guests of the defendant’s hotel.
The claim form was served to the defendant in July 2007. The defendant challenged the English court’s jurisdiction. Master Millar dismissed the defendant’s challenge.
This was an appeal against the order of Master Millar dated 22 July 2008. The English High Court allowed the appeal. Mr Justice Tugendhat held:
“87 in my judgment the decision of the Master was wrong and unjust because of a serious procedural irregularity in the proceedings. I must therefore make my own decision on the first ground of appeal. For the reasons I have given, the appeal ought to succeed on the ground that there is a real doubt as to whether an agreement in the form alleged was ever signed by the Defendant, and the material before the court does not support a good arguable case that there was. Having reached that view, I do not need to reach a conclusion on whether, if it did, the Claimant has a good arguable case that there was the necessary consensus between the parties.” [87]