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The wealth in Paul Holgate v Addleshaw Goddard (Scotland). Intra-UK conflicts, the Gourdain insolvency exception; anchoring; forum contractus; and a stay on forum non conveniens grounds.

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In [2019] EWHC 1793 (Ch) Paul Holgate v Addleshaw Goddard (Scotland) the claim is for damages for breach of contract, negligence and/or breach of fiduciary duty in connection with and arising out of the defendant’s acceptance and performance (and/or non-performance) of instructions to act as solicitor for and to advise Arthur Holgate & Son Limited (then in administration, now in liquidation) in relation to a dispute between the Company and Barclays Bank.

The application concerns the allocation of jurisdiction within the UK. The rival forums are England and Scotland. The claim is not time-barred in England, but may, at least in part, be time-barred in Scotland, where the relevant period of ‘prescription’ (the Scottish equivalent of ‘limitation’) is 5 years.

The Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 allocates jurisdiction within the devolved regions of the UK and, for civil and commercial matters, has opted to apply the (now) Brussels I Recast Regulation mutatis mutandis. At issue is first of all the insolvency exception of Brussels Ia (extended here as noted to the UK Act) interpreted per CJEU C-133/78 Gourdain: at 4:””[I]t is necessary, if decisions relating to bankruptcy and winding-up are to be excluded from the scope of the [Brussels] Convention, that they must derive directly from the bankruptcy or winding-up, and be closely connected with the proceedings for the liquidation des biens or the règlement judiciaire .” (Reference to the French procedure given the French origins of the case). This provision of course in the meantime has a mirror image in the Insolvency Regulation known as the vis attractiva concursus: the forum concursus can hear not just the very insolvency action but also those closely connected to it. CJEU C-111/08 SCT Industri v Alpenblume also features heavily in the discussion.

(Note Clark M makes the oft-repeated mistake of suggesting Brussels Ia and Insolvency Regulation dovetail. I have emphasised on various occasions that they do not).

Following discussion, at 50 Clark M holds that the claim does not relate to the internal management, of the administration or the conduct of the Joint Administrators (JAs) of the insolvency: the defendant’s purely advisory role meant it was not responsible for either of these. This is insufficient for the claim to be “closely linked” to the administration.

Next is the application of the anchor proceedings: these, too, follow EU language and precedent entirely and at 79ff Clark M discusses the interesting question whether a claim providing the anchor, issued after the claim which anchors unto it, is capable of conferring jurisdiction. He held that it does, provided the other requirements of the anchor provisions are satisfied: in particular the desirability of avoiding irreconcilable judgments. The sequence of claims did lead to some procedural oddity which could however be rectified and there was no suggestion of abuse. 

At 89 ff follows discussion of the forum contractus: ‘place of performance of the obligation in question’. At 129 Master Clark concedes that the relevant statutory instrument deliberately did not instruct this part of the UK’s residual rules to be interpreted in line with EU rules, however given the exact same wording, there is no reason for not doing so. At 132 follows then the oddity of the consequences of CJEU De Bloos (and now the language of the Regulation) with respect to ‘the obligation in question’: the determination of the principal obligation is carried out by analysing the particulars of claim. He finds at 136 that the Company’s complaints flow essentially from the primary complaint that the defendant was in breach of its fiduciary duty by continuing to advise and act for the Company (and not advising it that it could not properly do so), thereby putting the Bank’s interests (and its interests) before those of the Company. At 139: the place of performance of that obligation, is held to be in England.

Finally, forum non conveniens is briefly discussed and the right forum held to be England.

Quite a jurisdictional goodie bag.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Private International Law, 2nd ed. 2016, much of Chapter 2.

 


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