From: Gerard
McMeel KC <Gerard.mcmeel@quadrantchambers.com>
Sent: Tuesday
11 February 2025 15:51
To: William
Swadling; Lionel Smith; obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: Re:
Getting rid of italics
Without wishing to add to a chorus of grumpy old men - are Bill
and Lionel not missing the principal vice of italics in legal texts? Namely
that case names should be in italics - and we do tend to look out for those
highlights?
Gerard
From: William Swadling
To: Lionel Smith
External Email
I
agree with Lionel. The real culprits are the Australians, who in their academic
literature seem to put quotes in italics and then either indent or use
quotation marks or both. The reader already knows from the presence of
quotation marks or indentation that they are reading a quote. They don t need
it shoved down their throat.
Bill
From: Lionel Smith
Sent: 11 February 2025 15:06
To: obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: Getting rid of italics
I entirely agree with Matthew. I feel obliged, however, to register my
discontent with the practice of setting quotations in italic text. Quotations
should be set within inverted commas, either single or double, said the very
pedantic Smith. He went on:
Of course, inverted commas are
often called quotation marks ; and it goes without saying that longer
quotations more text than will fit on a single line should be set in indented
text, without inverted commas. Italics, however, while they are suitable for
emphasis or for non-English words, should not be used for quotations.
LDS
From: Matthew Hoyle
<MHoyle@oeclaw.co.uk>
Date: Tuesday 11 February 2025 at 12:02
To: ODG <obligations@uwo.ca>
Subject: Getting rid of equitable remedies
Dear all,
Those with
an interest in equitable remedies may be interested by the English Court of
Appeal s decision today in UniCredit v RusChemAlliance [2025] EWCA Civ
99.
Last year,
the CA granted a final anti-suit last injunction restraining defendant from
pursuing proceedings in Russia based on an English law governed (albeit
French-seated) arbitration clause: [2024] EWCA Civ 64. This was upheld by the
UKSC: [2024] UKSC 30. The Russian court then says nice try, but if you don t
get that anti-suit discharged you ll forfeit 250m of your assets in Russia .
Claimant decides to surrender and asks CA to discharge the anti-suit.
A question
arises from court: do we have the power to do this?
The CA for some reason thinks this raises an
issue of what is now called the finality principle : see [19]. So it asks The
question, then, is whether there is power under CPR Part 3.1(7) to revoke or
amend the CA s Order in this case at the behest of UniCredit, with the
agreement of RCA. It seems to me that such power must exist, both on the
authorities I have cited and because of the unusual nature of the grant of a
final anti-suit injunction.
The Master
of the Rolls ultimately reasons:
Secondly, this is private litigation between
commercial parties. It would be very strange if a party that had obtained an
injunction, even a final one, could never return to the court to ask that, in
the changed circumstances that followed the grant of the injunction, it wanted
it discharged. Take the example of the court granting a final injunction in
favour of one landowner against another using adjoining land in a particular
way. It would be surprising, in that situation, if the claimant landowner could
not return to court to ask for the injunction to be discharged because, say,
either planning permission had been granted permitting the use that had been
injuncted, or the landowners had simply reached a commercial agreement varying
their rights (see two first instance decisions suggesting this may be the case
in different situations: Re Cabot Financial (UK) Ltd [2021] EWHC 789 (Ch), at
[2]-[7], and Madison CF UK v. Various [2018] EWHC 2786 (Ch) at [29]-[51]).
The Court
therefore discharges the anti-suit elements of the order: [44]-[55].
I agree
with the MR s reasoning from principle, but is this point really that unclear?
And is this not (a rare example of) a genuine inherent jurisdiction issue? I
had understood the court of equity can always dissolve any final (perpetual)
equitable remedy enforcing private rights at the behest of the party obtaining
it (subject, I suppose to abuse of process or duress/fraud concerns see [29]
of the MR s judgment). So for example in, the well-known decision in Johnson
v Agnew [1980] AC 367, 394 (Lord Wilberforce):
Fifthly, if the order for specific performance
is not complied with by the purchaser, the vendor may either apply to the court
for enforcement of the order, or may apply to the court to dissolve the order
and ask the court to put an end to the contract. This proposition is as stated
in Austins of East Ham Ltd. v. Macey [1941] Ch. 338 (and see Singh (Sudagar) v.
Nazeer [1979] Ch. 474 , 480, per Megarry V.-C.) and is in my opinion undoubted
law, both on principle and authority.
Lord
Wilberforce does not say but of course, once the SP order is made, then we
must consider finality . I cannot see how it would be different for an
injunction specifically enforcing a private right (in this case, a contractual
right that the defendant arbitrate a dispute), but I would be interested to
know if anyone has a different view?
Is this
not simply an aspect of the nature of equitable remedies. Because specific
relief is prospective in effect, it is entirely different to a determination of
the kind whether event X has happened in the past, or whether a past breach
must be compensated by a fixed amount of money. Once these things is determined
then there must be finality (and of course a claimant can always agree to
cancel a judgment debt by contract). But the future is uncertain, and
circumstances may change such that it is no longer sensible or just for the
court to continue holding the defendant over a barrel, requiring they do or do
not do something. I can t think the Chancery would have bound its hands with
such inflexibility as by adopting a finality principle in this regard. Is the
Court of Appeal simply being misled by the change in name from perpetual to
final ?
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