DamagesLitigation costs - contract with exclusive English jurisdiction clause - claim for money owed - claimant's costs of proceedings in New York brought by defendant recoverable in English action as damages for breach of contractUnion Discount Co Ltd v Zoller and others: CA (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers MR, Lord Justices Schiemann and May): 21 November 2001The claimant brought an action for money owed under a contract with an exclusive English jurisdiction clause.

The defendant brought proceedings in New York in breach of contract which on the claimant's application were struck out.

Costs were only awarded exceptionally for strike-out proceedings in New York.

The claimant's claim to recover as damages for breach of contract the costs incurred in New York were struck out as disclosing no cause of action.

The claimant appealed.Guy Philipps (instructed by Denton Wilde Sapte) for the claimant; Mark Hubbard (instructed by Harkavys) for the defendants.Held, allowing the appeal, that since the bringing of the proceedings in New York was in breach of contract the costs of those proceedings were prima facie recoverable; that those costs could not be recovered under New York law; that no binding authority inhibited the court from granting the claimant relief in damages; that the public interest did not require a claimant to be deprived of his reasonable expenses in litigating at the instance of a defendant in a jurisdiction which the defendant chose in breach of an exclusive jurisdiction clause; that justice required that the claimant should receive the damages which he had suffered by the breach, those damages being what the claimant had reasonably expended on the strike-out proceedings.