Commercial Disputes Weekly – Issue 21824 September 2024

Sanctions – Jurisdiction
After giving its decision earlier this year, the Supreme Court has provided detailed reasoning as to why it granted an English anti-suit injunction against a Russian company that had commenced proceedings in Russia in breach of a contractual agreement to ICC arbitration in Paris. It applied the general principle and concluded that as the governing law of the contract was English law, the arbitration agreement within the contract was also governed by English law. It was desirable that the parties should be held to a contractual agreement on the forum for any disputes under the contract. Preventing one party from breaking that agreement was not a supervisory function, so did not only sit with the French courts as the courts of the forum. Where neither the French court nor the arbitral tribunal could grant an effective remedy against breach of the arbitration agreement, the English courts were the proper place to bring the claim for an anti-suit injunction.
Unicredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30, 18 September 2024

Maritime – Agency
In a misdelivery claim, the Commercial Court has rejected a claim that the cargo marketing agent, TPT Forests Ltd, was liable under letters of indemnity as an undisclosed principal. A contractual structure had been put in place for the export of the cargoes of logs, with TPT Forests dealing with sales and marketing, and TPT Shipping Ltd arranging vessels on which to transport the logs. TPT Forests entered into a shipping services agreement with TPT Shipping as agent for the log exporters, but TPT Shipping chartered the ships in its own name and provided space for the log cargoes to be carried. The claimant shipowners originally claimed against TPT Shipping for the losses from misdelivery of the cargo but sought unsuccessfully to claim against TPT Forests when TPT Shipping went into liquidation.
Yangtze Navigation (Asia) Co Ltd v TPT Shipping Ltd [2024] EWHC 2371 (Comm), 18 September 2024

For a more detailed discussion of the decision, see our article here.

ESG – Judicial Review
Friends of the Earth brought a judicial review application to challenge a decision of the Secretary of State to give planning permission for a new coal mine in Cumbria. The court held that the reasoning in the recent Supreme Court decision in Finch v Surrey CC [2024] UKSC 20 was applicable in this case. The Secretary of State could not grant planning permission without first considering the relevant environmental information. It had not done so and the decision was quashed. Amongst issues that needed to be considered properly were the harm that a new coal mine would do to the UK’s ability to persuade other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the use of coal, the suggestion that the coal extracted would be substituted for US coal that would otherwise be used and the impact of burning any coal that was extracted from the mine.
Friends of the Earth Ltd v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2024] EWHC 2349 (Admin), 13 September 2024

Arbitration
In a dispute arising out of the supply of marine gas oil, the Commercial Court has rejected an attempt by the liable party, TMD, to bring additional claims against the contractual counterparties. TMD had been found liable by an arbitration award in 2020 and ordered to pay US$937,353 for supply of the oil. TMD disputed the existence of the contracts, the oil deliveries and that it was bound by a London arbitration agreement. This latest claim was an additional attempt to challenge the London arbitration award and deal with any disputes in Malaysian arbitration. The claim was struck out as abusive.
Tumpuan Megah Development SDN BHD v ING Bank NV and another [2024] EWHC 2350 (Comm), 17 September 2024

Should you wish to discuss any of these cases in further detail, please speak with a member of our London dispute resolution team below, or your regular contact at Watson Farley & Williams: