Oblique Financial Services Ltd v The Promise Production Company Ltd

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: MR JUSTICE KEANE
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1994
• Neutral Citation: 1993 WJSC-HC 2503
• Docket Number: No 91.A./1993
• Court: High Court
• Date: 01 January 1994

OBLIQUE FINANCIAL SERVICES LTD v. THE PROMISE PRODUCTION CO LTD

OBLIQUE FINANCIAL SERVICES LTD

PLAINTIFF

THE PROMISE PRODUCTION CO LTD DENNIS HALL PENFIELDENTERPRISES LTD JOHN MULCAHY

DEFENDANTS

1993 WJSC-HC 2503

No 91.A./1993

THE HIGH COURT

Words & Phrases:

CEF

Subject Headings:

INJUCTION: interlocutory

Citations:

JURISDICTION OF COURTS & ENFORCEMENT OF JUDGMENTS (EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES) ACT 1988 S11

BRUSSELS CONVENTION 1968 ART 1

HOUSE OF SPRING GARDENS LTD V POINT BLANK LTD 1984 IR 611

AG V PAPERLINK 1984 ILRM 373

CONSTITUTION ART 40.6(1)

CONSTITUTION ART 40.3(1)

BRUSSELS CONVENTION 1968 ART 24

1 JUDGEMENT OF MR JUSTICE KEANEDelivered 24th February 1993

TRANSCRIPT OF JUDGEMENT

2 I hereby certify the following to be true and accurate transcript of my shorthand notes of the above named judgement.

3 This is an application under Section 11 of the Jurisdiction of Courts Enforcement of Judgements (European Communities) Act, 1988, which provides:

4 2 "(1)Where - (a) proceedings have been commenced or are to be commenced in a Contracting State other than the State, and (b) they are or will be proceedings whose subject - matter is within the scope of the 1968 Convention as determined by Article 1 (whether or not the 1968 Convention has effect in relation to the proceedings), the High Courtmay, on application to it pursuant to Article 24, grant provisional, including protective, measures of any kind that the Court has power to grant in proceedings that, apart from this Act, are within itsjurisdiction.

5 (2) On an application under Subsection (1) of this section, the High Court may refuse to grant the measures sought if, in the opinion of that Court, the fact that the Court has not jurisdiction, apart from this section, in relation to the subject-matter of the proceedings in question makes it inexpedient for that Court to grant suchmeasures."

6 The background to the present case is as follows. The Plaintiff is a company, incorporated in the United Kingdom, which according to the Affidavit filed on its behalf in these proceedings, is essentially engaged in marrying financial sources with production sources. And is thereby earning for the company fees from investment clients, particularly from film revenues. The Plaintiff Company entered into a contract with the First Named Defendant in these proceedings relating to the financing of a film, to be called "The Promise". And the Plaintiffs say that the terms of that agreement are that what was described as "absolute and total confidentiality" would be maintained by the parties to that agreement in relation to any information as to the transaction which they acquired as a result of entering into the agreement.

7 The Plaintiffs say that the First and Second Named Defendants are in breach of that agreement by disclosing certain information, which they acquired as the result of having entered into the agreement or in the negotiations pleminary thereto, to other persons, and the matter, which they say, that particularly concerns them is that the identity of an investor in this country, was disclosed by the First and Second Named Defendants to other parties. This, they say, is in clear breach of the agreement by the First and Second Named Defendants to preserve absolutely confidentiality in relation to these matters.

8 The application for interim protective measures, under the Section, to which I have referred, is brought solely against the Third and Fourth Named Defendants, who are Publishers and Editor, respectively, of the Phoenix Magazine, and who have indicated their intention to publish in a forthcoming issue, information disclosed to them, including the name of the investor, the identity of the investor in question.

9 On Friday last, Mr Justice Geoghegan granted an Interim Injunction to the Plaintiffs in these proceedings, which they indicated they intended to issue in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, as against all the Defendants. The application for the Interim Injunction was brought solely against the Third and Fourth Named Defendants, under the Section of the Judgements Act to which I have already referred.

10 It is accepted by Counsel for both the Applicant and the Respondent that the substantive case, the substantive proceedings are being instituted in an English Court, and it will fall to be decided by that Court in accordance with English law. However, the application, as envisaged by Section 11, and it is also accepted by Counsel, must fall to be determined by this Court, in accordance with the principles of Irish Law applicable to granting or withholding of an Interlocutory Injunction. As it happens, there is no significant difference in the law in this country and the law in England and Wales as to the principles that should be applied by the Court in granting or withholding an interlocutory injunction, with one important proviso, and that is, but again, it has been agreed by Counsel, that the...