“(1) Unlawful acts used against, and independently actionable by, a third party; (2) Interference with the actions of the third party in which the claimant has an economic interest; (3) Intention to cause loss to the claimant by the use of unlawful means; and (4) Loss in fact caused to the claimant.”
“We concluded that, while claims in proprietary restitution and restitution for unjust enrichment will likely be available in the context of third category things, a claim in conversion will not. This is because conversion only applies to things in possession.”
“It is the strength of the common law to respond, albeit cautiously and intelligently, to the demands of commonsense justice in an evolving society.”
“modern conception of conversion must include wrongful interference with intangible goods, such as electronic data, websites and email.”
“Forms of action are dead, but their ghosts still haunt the precincts of the law. In their life they were powers of evil, and even in death they have not wholly ceased from troubling. In earlier days they filled the law with formalism and fiction, confusion and complexity, and though most of the mischief which they did has been buried with them, some portion of it remains inherent in the law of the present day. Thus if we open a book on the law of torts, howsoever modern and rationalized, we can still hear the echoes of the old controversies … and we are still called upon to observe distinctions and subtleties that have no substance or justification in them, but are nothing more than an evil inheritance from the days when forms of action and of pleading held the legal system in their clutches. In no branch of the law is this more obvious than in that which relates to the different classes of wrongs which may be committed with respect to chattels. In particular the law of trover and conversion is a region still darkened with the mists of legal formalism, through which no man will find his way by the light of nature …”
“While the definition of corporeal personal property may normally be straightforward, questions may nevertheless arise in a number of borderline cases, in particular in respect of electronic technology. For example, it is hard to see why a deliberate attempt through the internet unlawfully to manipulate data on a computer should not amount to a trespass to that computer. The configuration of a computer hard disk is a physical feature of it, and the defendant’s act in altering or accessing it changes that configuration, at least temporarily. American courts have fairly consistently so held, and it is suggested that English courts should do likewise. A more difficult question is whether accessing data rather than altering it ought to amount to trespass, for example where a defendant causes a search engine, “bot” or “spider” to access and extract data in circumstances where the owner of the computer concerned has made it clear that he does not wish this to be done. Although the formal requirements of trespass are made out here, it is suggested that the defendant should have a defence here analogous to that applicable in trespass to goods generally where the act complained of has not “gone beyond generally acceptable standards of conduct”
“The court may make an order for security for costs if— (a) it is satisfied, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, that it is just to make such an order; and (b) either an enactment permits the court to require security for costs, or one or more of the following conditions apply— (i) the claimant is resident out of the jurisdiction;”
“A major matter for consideration is the likelihood of the plaintiff succeeding.”