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The parties to this claim are all involved in the development, production and sale of medical devices . The breakdown of their business relationship gave rise to litigation in France and England.
The Commercial Court handed down judgment refusing the Defendant’s application to stay the English proceedings under Article 30 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 (the Judgments Regulation). Having considered the English and European case-law in respect of the proper application of Article 30, Teare J concluded that the English Court was first seised and therefore had no jurisdiction to stay the action before it.
The Judge held that under the Judgment Regulations “the mere fact that the court in country A granted provisional relief will not mean that the court in country B where substantive proceedings were later commenced will be the court first seised. If the proceedings before the court in country A can, although they commenced with the grant of provisional relief, proceed to a determination of the substantive issue between the parties (as in an English action) then the court of country A can be regarded as the court first seised” (para 37). He also found that the Claimants’ proposed amendment to the Claim Form did not raise a “new claim” as it arose out of the same facts and matters and only added a further remedy.
Philip Moser QC and Nikolaus Grubeck (instructed by Greenberg Traurig Maher LLP) acting for the Claimants.
The judgment is available here.