Summary
The claimant, IRL, was registered in Ireland. The defendant, DBP, was an English company. The claims were in respect of an Exclusive Distributorship Agreement, concluded between IRL and a Danish company, PMI. IRL brought in England an action against DBP. There was an inducement claim – it was alleged that DBP induced PMI to breach the terms of the Exclusive Distribution Agreement. In addition, there was an (alternative) unlawful means claim as well as a conspiracy. The claim form was issued on 10 June 2010, and the particulars of the claim were served on the 14th July 2010. Also, injunctive relief (i.e. freezing order and search order) was sought and obtain on 9th June.
An important factor in these proceedings was that a first instance “Danish court had considered whether, on the evidence led before it, PMI had acted in breach of Art. 5(2) of the Exclusive Distributorship Agreement, and had concluded that it had not.” [51]. In this context, the leading counsel for the defendant invoked Articles 33 and 36 of Brussels I.
The English High Court held the English proceedings had to be stayed.
The freezing and search orders were discharged.
HHJ Richard Seymour Q.C. held:
“[…] in my judgment, whether consciously intended or not, the commencement and pursuit in this action of the Inducement Claim amounted to an abuse of the process of this court because it was in the nature of a collateral attack on the correctness of the Danish Judgment in circumstances in which the matters alleged to justify the Inducement Claim were facts contrary to the findings of the Danish Court but the self-same facts which are to be relied upon in support of the appeal against the Danish Judgment. As it seems to me, it is contrary to the spirit of the Judgments Regulation for a court in England to entertain, in advance of a hearing of an appeal in Denmark, a claim which has to be based on the proposition that the findings in the Danish Judgment were wrong. The proper course, in my judgment, bearing in mind that the parties to this action are not identical to the parties to the Danish Proceedings, is to stay this action, insofar as it relates to the Inducement Claim, until after the hearing of the appeal against the Danish Judgment.” [66]