Case number and/or case name
AMT Futures Ltd v Marzillier, Dr Meier & Dr Guntner Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH [2014] EWHC 1085 (Comm)
Summary
The claimant, AMT, was based in England. The defendant, MMGR, was a German law firm.
The claimant was active on the financial service market, and had numerous agreements, containing an English jurisdiction clause.
The claimant was suing in England. It was alleged that the defendant induced its clients to sue in Germany which was in breach of the jurisdiction agreement.
The claim against the defendant was in tort of wrongfully inducing a breach of contract. The value of the claim was over 2 million. The defendant challenged the jurisdiction of the English court.
The English High Court dismissed the defendant’s challenge. Mr Justice Popplewell held:
“45 In this case the contractual benefit to AMT of the exclusive English jurisdiction clause comprised the right to be sued, if anywhere, in England as the place where AMT was entitled to have resolved any disputes falling within the scope of the clause. The contractual benefit comprised the right to recourse to the English Courts in order to protect and enforce AMT’s substantive rights. The harm AMT has suffered in this case is the loss of the protection and enforcement of those rights in the English Courts. The deprivation of that benefit is harm suffered in England, where the benefit ought to have been enjoyed, just as much as would be deprivation of a money sum which fell to be paid in England, or goods which fell to be delivered in England. AMT has suffered damage here because it has lost the protection of its substantive rights in the English Courts in England.
46 For these reasons, in my judgment AMT’s claim against MMGR falls within art.5(3) . The place where the damage occurred as a result of MMGR’s allegedly tortious conduct was England, where such conduct deprived AMT of the contractual benefit of the exclusive jurisdiction clause which ought to have been enjoyed in England.” [45-46]
An appeal was made to the Court of Appeal which allowed the appeal, reversing the High Court judgment. Lord Justice Christopher Clarke held:
“53 If one looks at the matter more broadly and asks: what was the harm which, in this case, occurred in England, it seems to me impossible to say that it was the failure to issue proceedings here; and, if the harm was that proceedings were issued in Germany, then it was in Germany that the harm was suffered.
54 Such a conclusion is consistent with the authorities of the ECJ. If I ask myself: (i) what is “the place where the event giving rise to the damage … directly produced its harmful effects upon” AMTF ( Dumez )”; or (ii) where was the “actual damage” which “elsewhere can be felt” or the “initial damage” suffered ( Marinari ); or (iii) what was the place where the damage which can be attributed to the harmful event (commencement of proceedings) by “a direct and causal link” ( Reunion ) was sustained, the answer is, in my judgment, Germany." [2015] EWCA Civ 143 [53 and 54].