Interlocutory injunction - order resulting in loss to third party - no requirement that order conditional on applicant undertaking to pay third parties' expenses

Miller Brewing Co v Ruhi Enterprises Ltd and another: ChD (Mr Justice Neuberger): 23 May 2003

The claimant obtained an interim injunction pursuant to an action for trade mark infringement.

The result of that injunction was that a consignment of bottled beer was impounded at the docks at Liverpool.

The applicants, who were innocent third parties, were liable to the docks for various charges in respect of that beer.

They applied for an order that they be reimbursed by the claimants on the ground that an interim injunction should, as a matter of course, include the undertaking found in freezing orders that the claimant pay the reasonable costs of any third party incurred as a result of the order.

Martin Howe QC (instructed by Arnold & Porter) for the claimants; Ashley Roughton (instructed by Charles Russell) for the second defendant; Madeleine Heal (instructed by Hill Taylor Dickinson) for the applicants.

Held, dismissing the application, that it would be a strong thing to require the claimant effectively to sign a series of blank cheques in favour of third parties of whose very existence and interests he might be unaware, and for whose losses he might find himself liable even though he might be entitled to his injunction; that because of its unusual effect, a freezing order was an exceptional case; that in all other cases the interests of a third party who was detrimentally affected by an interim injunction could be put before the court by the defendant, alternatively, the third party himself could apply to the court either to vary or discharge the injunction or to extend to him the benefit of the cross-undertaking.