Cartier International AG v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd

Where new evidence establishes that websites are operating as counterfeiting websites, the court may make website-blocking orders against internet service providers where the circumstances justify the same relief as in an earlier application. The court may determine a supplementary application on the evidence filed and subsequent correspondence, including where the internet service providers do not oppose the proposed order. Relief may be granted in the same terms, with necessary modifications, as the order made in the principal application.

Following judgment in Cartier International AG v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd [2014] EWHC 3354 (Ch), the claimant discovered that two websites appearing in Google search results were operating as counterfeiting websites. Trap purchases were made, and the goods were subsequently received and analysed as counterfeit.

Because the evidence was not available in time for the main application, the claimant issued a supplementary application seeking orders requiring the defendant internet service providers to block the new websites. The application was adjourned and later considered after the providers indicated that they did not oppose equivalent relief. The central issue was whether an order should be made in respect of the new websites on the same basis as the order made in the main application.

1. Application granted. Having considered the evidence filed in support of the supplementary application and the subsequent inter-solicitor correspondence, the court was satisfied that it was appropriate to make an order concerning the two new websites.
2. The decisive reasoning was that the new websites were shown to be operating as counterfeiting websites. The trap purchases and subsequent analysis supplied evidence which had not been available when the main application was heard.
3. The court adopted the same reasons as those given in the earlier judgment concerning the target websites. The order was therefore to be made in substantially the same terms, mutatis mutandis.
4. The fact that the defendant internet service providers did not oppose the order supported the procedural determination, but the court expressly considered the evidence and independently concluded that relief was appropriate.

This was a first-instance supplementary application in the High Court. The judgment records that the court had previously decided the main application in Cartier International AG v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd [2014] EWHC 3354 (Ch). The present application was subsequently granted in respect of the new websites.