United Kingdom Archives - EURO LIT INSIGHTS

English High Court Unravels National Iranian Oil Company’s Attempt to Shield £100M London Property from Enforcement of Arbitral Award

by Michael Darowski, Campbell Herbert and Jannika Glendon | Apr 23, 2024 | Arbitration, Court Judgment, Oil & Gas, United Kingdom

The English High Court has ordered the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to transfer a high-value London property to Crescent Gas Corporation Limited (CGC) in satisfaction of a US$2.4 billion arbitral award in favour of CGC against NIOC. The Court found that NIOC’s eleventh-hour transfer of the property to its closely linked Iranian pension fund (the Fund) was a ploy to shield it from enforcement action by CGC.

The judgment, which is the most recent development in the ongoing, long-running dispute between CGC and NIOC, is likely to be of interest to practitioners and clients seeking to enforce arbitral awards in England, as well as those establishing or litigating trusts of land in England and Wales

McDermott acted for CGC in the proceedings, as well as the underlying arbitration and award challenge proceedings described below.

Background

In 2009, CGC, a subsidiary of UAE-based Crescent Petroleum, commenced arbitration seated in London against NIOC for breach of a 2001 long-term gas supply agreement. In September 2021, the tribunal rendered a Partial Award on Remedies in favour of CGC in which it ordered NIOC to pay more than US$2.4 billion in damages plus interest.

Having successfully defended two challenges to the award, brought

A Tale of Two Contracts: Reinsurance Dispute Ends in a New York State of Mind

by Campbell Herbert | Apr 22, 2024 | Arbitration, Procedural Legal Update, United Kingdom

In a battle of conflicting contracts, Tyson found itself on the losing end of a reinsurance dispute with Partner Re when the English Court of Appeal ruled [1] that a reinsurance contract on a Market Uniform Reinsurance Agreement (MURA) form superseded a prior contract on a Market Reform Contract (MRC) form, giving effect to the New York arbitration clause in the MURA.

The Duelling Documents

The saga began when Tyson International Company Limited (Tyson), captive insurer of poultry-giant Tyson Foods and the reinsured, and Partner Reinsurance Europe SE (Partner Re), a reinsurer, entered into a reinsurance contract on the MRC form, governed by English law and with an exclusive jurisdiction provision in favour of the English court. However, eight days later, at Tyson’s request, Partner Re issued another reinsurance contract on the MURA form, governed by New York law and containing a dispute resolution clause providing for arbitration in New York.

Flames and Feathers Fly

Following a fire at a poultry rendering facility in Alabama, Tyson sought to claim under the reinsurance. Partner Re purported to avoid the contract, citing misrepresentations in relation to the value of the insured properties. A dispute arose.

Tyson commenced proceedings in England,

High Court Issues First Judgment on Quincecare Duty After Landmark Supreme Court Ruling

by Jack Thorne and Harry Denlegh-Maxwell | Mar 27, 2024 | Banking & Finance, United Kingdom

The so-called Quincecare duty has come under consideration for the first time since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Philipp v Barclays Bank UK plc[1] in July 2023.

As we set out in our article here, the ruling in Philipp was widely seen as a welcome clarification of the scope of the Quincecare duty owed by financial institutions, particularly as the level of online fraud continues to soar. This most recent judgment, handed down on 14 March 2024, suggests that, following the ruling in Philipp, focus will turn to the adequacy of a bank’s efforts to recover funds from second and third generation recipients.

The decision

In CCP Graduate School Ltd v National Westminster Bank Plc and Santander UK Plc[2], CCP Graduate School Ltd (CCP) claimed that it had been the victim of an “authorized push payment” (APP) fraud. CCP argued that criminal actors fraudulently induced it to transfer money from its account with National Westminster Bank Plc (NatWest) to an account held with Santander UK Plc (Santander). CCP argued that, at the time the payments were made, and unbeknownst to CCP, the Santander account was under the control of the criminal actors.

CCP

New Government Bill to Reverse Supreme Court’s Decision on Litigation Funding

by Jack Thorne, Briana Walley, Harry Denlegh-Maxwell and James Dobias | Mar 27, 2024 | Legislative Update, Regulatory/Compliance, Transportation & Logistics, United Kingdom

The Litigation Funding Agreements (Enforceability) Bill was introduced to Parliament this week, following the UK government’s announcement earlier this month that it would introduce legislation that would reverse the outcome of the UK Supreme Court’s recent decision in R (on the application of PACCAR Inc and others) v Competition Appeal Tribunal and others.[1]

In PACCAR, a part of the well-known “Trucks” litigation in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), the Supreme Court held that litigation funding agreements (LFAs) that entitle funders to be paid a portion of any damages recovered (as opposed to a multiple of the investment made by the litigation funder) are “damages-based agreements” (DBAs), as defined in the Courts and Legal Services Act, and were therefore unenforceable unless they complied with the relevant regulatory regime (DBA Regulations 2013).

The ruling in PACCAR was set to have significant ramifications for litigation funders, claimants and claimant law firms in the UK which rely on third-party funding, potentially threatening the financial viability of swathes of the litigation funding industry. Typically, LFAs have been structured as the greater of a multiple of monies invested by the funder and a percentage of damages recovered. This percentage element is

Damages Are Adequate – But Is It Sufficiently Serious?

by Sharon Lamb and Kimberley Smith | Mar 21, 2024 | Healthcare, United Kingdom

In a highly-anticipated judgment dated January 30, 2024, the Court of Appeal confirmed that in a procurement challenge under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (PCR), a finding of a manifest error will not automatically mean that the error is ‘sufficiently serious’ to justify an award of damages.

This blog piece is a reduced version of our wider commentary on the case, which is available here.

Background

The procurement in question was for the provision of nationwide orthodontic services, although the challenge related to a contract for services in East Hampshire for a 7-year term worth £32.7 million (the Procurement). Braceurself was the incumbent, but its bid (one out of two) was unsuccessful, and the contract was awarded to a company known as PAL in these proceedings. The difference between the two bids was very close: PAL scored 82.5%, whereas Braceurself scored 80.25%.

Braceurself issued proceedings challenging the Procurement on a number of fronts, seeking to have the score corrected and the contract awarded to Braceurself. The issue of proceedings engaged the automatic suspension under the PCR. NHS England brought its application to lift the automatic suspension and was successful, primarily as Judge Bird found that “in this case damages

English Courts Assert Jurisdiction to Grant Anti-Suit Relief in Landmark Case

by Campbell Herbert | Mar 5, 2024 | Court Judgment, Banking & Finance, Oil & Gas, United Kingdom

In a ground-breaking ruling, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that English courts have the authority to issue final anti-suit injunctions in support of arbitration agreements governed by English law, even when the seat of the arbitration is outside of England. The landmark judgment in Unicredit Bank GmbH v Ruschemalliance LLC [2024] EWCA Civ 64, which follows three earlier lower court decisions arising on substantially the same fact[1], reinforces the robust protection of arbitration rights under English law and solidifies the position of English courts as a bastion for arbitration.

Background

The dispute revolved around Italian bank UniCredit, which, along with Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, issued performance bonds in favour of RusChemAlliance (RCA), a Russian operator of an LNG facility in the Leningrad Oblast, in relation to construction contracts between RCA and German engineering contractors. These bonds were governed by English law and provided for arbitration in Paris under the ICC rules.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent imposition of wide-ranging EU sanctions, the German companies halted work under the construction contracts after receiving confirmation from German authorities that they deemed such work to be prohibited under Regulation (EU) 833/2014. RCA terminated the

Clearview AI Inc Overturns Regulatory Intervention at First Instance

by Jack Thorne, Pilar Arzuaga and Jonathan Robb | Feb 14, 2024 | Court Judgment, Regulatory/Compliance, Technology, United Kingdom

Clearview AI Inc.’s facial recognition technology has been subject to regulatory scrutiny from the privacy sector worldwide, including the UK Information Commissioner who issued the US company with monetary penalty and enforcement notices (the Notices) for alleged violations of GDPR/UK GDPR (the Regulations).

In a judgment dated October 17, 2023 (the Judgment), the UK’s First-tier Tribunal (FTT) (being the first level of regulatory appeals) upheld, on jurisdictional grounds, Clearview’s appeal of the Notices. The Commissioner sought permission to appeal on November 17, 2023. This blog piece is a reduced version of our wider commentary on the case, which is available here.

Background

Clearview is a US company providing facial recognition services to criminal law enforcement and national security agencies (and/or their contractors) outside of the United Kingdom and the European Union. In short, Clearview collects publicly available images of faces from the internet, which are compiled into a database (the Database). Clearview’s software then creates a mathematical ‘vector’ of those faces, such that they can be indexed and searched against. Clearview’s clients are able to upload their own images onto their private Clearview platform and compare those images against the Database. Clearview’s algorithmic software will return images of sufficient

Representative Proceedings | A Low Bar to the “Same Interest” Requirement?

by Jack Thorne and Briana Walley | Feb 11, 2024 | Court Judgment, United Kingdom

In Commission Recovery Ltd v Marks & Clerk LLP & Anor [2024] EWCA Civ 9, the Court of Appeal handed down one of its first decisions concerning representative proceedings following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Lloyd v Google. The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s decision at first instance and allowed a representative proceeding under CPR 19.8(2) to proceed, but also identified several issues that it noted will require careful case management in the future.

The underlying proceedings concern current and former clients of the two defendant firms, Marks & Clerk LLP (M&C), and its associated firm, Long Acre Renewals (LAC), alleging that those firms received secret commissions for referring clients of M&C to a third party. They allege that M&C and LAC are liable to account for the amount of those commissions. A special purpose vehicle, Commission Recovery Ltd (CRL), was incorporated for the purposes of bringing the proceedings and took an assignment of a claim from one of M&C’s clients, Bambach Europe. CRL is the representative claimant in the action.

Representative Actions under English Law

Under CPR 19.8, a Claimant can bring a claim on behalf of other persons where they have the “same interest” in

Deutsche Bank Anti-Suit Injunction

by Romilly Holland and Sadaat Cheema | Oct 21, 2023 | Arbitration, Court Judgment, Banking & Finance, United Kingdom

The recent decision of the Court of Appeal (the Court) in Deutsche Bank v Ruschemalliance LLC [2023] EWCA Civ 1144 (Deutsche Bank) confirms the strong interest in favour of granting anti-suit relief to hold parties to their arbitration agreements, even where the seat of arbitration is in a jurisdiction that does not itself provide for anti-suit injunctions (ASIs). In this case, anti-suit relief against proceedings issued in Russia was granted in circumstances where the relevant contract contained an agreement to arbitrate disputes in Paris. The Court considered that England was the proper forum for the anti-suit application, and that an anti-suit injunction was appropriate, because French courts do not grant ASIs.

The case is timely as it comes against the backdrop of a number of disputes about forum and choice of law in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Agreements have increasingly broken down following implementation of US and European sanctions. There have been a number of consequential disputes over where to litigate – in Russia (as the Russian entity may prefer) or according to the contract’s specified forum. Paris is one of the most popular ‘neutral’ forums for dispute resolution, including in contracts with Russian counterparties. However, if

Redactions and Waiver of Privilege: High Court Provides Guidance

by Harry Denlegh-Maxwell | Oct 9, 2023 | Court Judgment, United Kingdom

The long-running battle between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) has hit the headlines again. The most recent Judgment (which can be found here) concerns ENRC’s challenge to certain redactions to a report disclosed by the SFO.

The report in question (the Byrne Report) set out the SFO’s findings following an investigation into allegations that employees of the SFO improperly leaked sensitive information acquired in the course of its investigation into ENRC to journalists and other third parties. The SFO disclosed the Byrne Report to ENRC, but with redactions made to it on the basis of three distinct grounds:

Privilege;
Irrelevance and confidentiality; and
Public interest immunity (PII), as certified by the then director of the SFO.

ENRC made an application to challenge the redactions on each of these grounds, and the High Court considered these in turn.

Privilege

ENRC made two substantive arguments regarding the redactions made on the basis of privilege. ENRC argued that either the High Court should inspect the redacted material to determine whether privilege had been properly claimed, or, alternatively, the SFO should be ordered to provide an additional explanation for the basis on which it asserted

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