“AND UPON the court finding that such infringements had been completely prevented from occurring by effective restrictions introduced in 2019 AND UPON the Defendants indicating that they have no intention of removing such restrictions to enable those acts to be repeated.”
“Summary of principles. 113. I therefore summarise the applicable principles as follows. First, an injunction may be granted pursuant tos.37(l) of the Supreme Court Act 1981 whenever it is just and convenient to do so. Second, the grant of an injunction involves the exercise of the court’s discretion, and the court should, in so doing, take account of all of the circumstances, one factor of which is the importance or triviality of the breach. Third, there are certain kinds of case, of which intellectual property cases are examples, in which an injunction will normally be granted if a claimant has established infringement of its rights and there is a threat to continue (or at least no clear and unequivocal undertaking not to continue). Fourth, where there is no threat to continue acts which have been held to be unlawful, because the defendant has clearly and unequivocally agreed not to do them before the action was brought, it is not right in principle to grant an injunction. Fifth, there may, however, be situations where, even though a defendant may have agreed not to undertake the acts in question, an injunction may be just and convenient, having regard to all the circumstances. This may be, for example, because of the greater incentive for respect of a claimant’s rights that an injunction would provide, and which, in particular cases, it may appear just to grant. Sixth, the court may, in appropriate cases, take proportionality into account in granting or refusing injunctive relief.”
“It seems to me plainly inappropriate in principle to grant an injunction in favour of the claimant against a defendant who clearly and unequivocally agreed, before the action for the injunction was even started, to refrain from taking that very action which the injunction would have forbidden him from taking.”
“(a) the conduct of all parties; (b) whether a party has succeeded on part of its case even if that party has not been wholly successful; and (c) any admissible offer to settle made by a party which is drawn to the court’s attention and which is not an offer to which cost consequences under Part 36 apply.”
“In any case where a costs management order has been made, when assessing costs on the standard basis the court will (a) have regard to the receiving party’s last approved or agreed budgeted costs for each phase of the proceedings; (b) not depart from such approved or agreed budgeted costs unless satisfied that there is good reason to do so; and (c) take into account any comments made pursuant to rule 3.17(3) and record it on the face of the order.”
“It seems to me that the impact of costs budgeting on the determination of a sum for a payment on account of costs is very significant although I am not persuaded that it is so significant that I should simply award the budgeted sum. Bearing in mind that unless there is good reason to depart from the budget, the budget will not be departed from, but also taking into account the vagaries of litigation and things that might occur and the fact that it is, at least, possible that the assessed costs will be less, although no good reason why that is so has been advanced before me, I will make an award of 90% of the sum in the claimants budget (£644,829.10 ) rounded up to the nearest thousand.”
“The defendants’ incurred costs in respect of these three items are extremely high when compared with the costs which have been incurred by the claimants. In particular, whereas the claimants included a costs budget for the CMC of£15,968 , the incurred costs for the CMC by the defendants is£135,098 . Having conducted the CMC I am at a loss to understand how that discrepancy can be justified. Therefore, these are items which, in my judgment, should be examined critically on a detailed assessment if it becomes relevant.”
“Given (i) the likely size and complexity of the bill to be submitted for assessment; (ii) the complications inherent in triggering the insurance and indemnity arrangements which it was in the interests of both Claimants and Defendants should be put in place (because of the terms of the GLO) and the uncertainties that have since arisen; and (iii) the fact that, pending payment, the Defendants are receiving interest on unpaid costs at a commercial rate, in my judgment a period of about four months from the date of this judgment should elapse before interest at judgment debt rate is payable on unpaid costs.”