Remedies

Breach of injunction - defendants could not rely on legal advice as defence - inquiry into damages orderedParker and Another (trading as NBC Services) v Rasalingham (trading as Micro Tec) and Others: ChD (Lawrence Collins QC sitting as a deputy High Court judge): 3 July 2000

A consent order was made in November 1999 prohibiting the defendants from copying or using certain parts of the claimant's marketing literature and from selling until 25 April 2000 open-learning course of the type marketed by the claimants.

On17 April 2000 the defendants were held to have been in continuous breach of the prohibition on the sale of the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer qualification offered by the claimants.

The claimants applied for the committal of the defendants and requested an inquiry into damages.

The defendants claimed by way of mitigation that they had obtained legal advice before carrying out the conduct which led to the breach of the court order.Madeleine Heal (instructed by Sills & Betteridge, Lincoln) for the claimants.

Robert Onslow (instructed by Bates Wells & Braithwaite,) for the first defendant.

Gregory Dowell (instructed by Ralph Haeems & Co) for the second and third defendants.

Held, finding partly in favour of the claimants, that it was not an appropriate case for committal or a fine: that the defendants could not rely on their legal advice in mitigation because it was nowhere recorded, and it was not a case of a defendant having a bona fide belief in the correctness of legal advice which later turned out to be untrue: that the court did have jurisdiction to award damages for breach of the negotiated consent order since damages would have been available had the order been embodied in an undertaking to the court or in a Tomlin order; and that, therefore, there should be an inquiry into damages.