Sports Direct International Plc v Rangers International Football Club Plc & Anor

Committal for breach of an order requires proof beyond reasonable doubt of each essential element of the alleged contempt. The applicant must identify each alleged breach with sufficient particularity in the application notice itself. Evidence cannot materially enlarge the charges. Personal service of the order is ordinarily required, although the court may dispense with it where the recipient had adequate notice of the order and its penal consequences. The discretion should be exercised cautiously, particularly where non-service was deliberate or the recipient’s understanding is uncertain. A company is not ordinarily bound by a single director’s media statements without evidence of actual, usual or ostensible authority. Committal proceedings may also be an abuse where the procedural failings, evidential weakness and disproportionate expenditure make the application oppressive or pointless.

Sports Direct International Plc applied to commit Rangers International Football Club Plc and David King for contempt of an injunction made by Asplin J on 11 June 2015. The injunction reproduced confidentiality obligations concerning discussions and information relating to the parties’ commercial arrangements.

Sports Direct alleged that Mr King had disclosed confidential matters in a July 2015 interview with Sky Sports. It relied substantially on an article on the Sky Sports website and on evidence placed before the court without cross-examination. Rangers also opposed the application and disputed personal service of the order. The central issues were whether the alleged breaches were sufficiently particularised, proved to the criminal standard, attributable to Rangers, and capable of enforcement despite the service defects.

1. Application dismissed. Sports Direct failed to establish contempt by Rangers or Mr King. The court also declined retrospectively to dispense with personal service and held that the procedure was abusive and disproportionate.
2. Committal is quasi-criminal. The applicant must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the respondent knew the order, breached it, and knew the facts making the conduct a breach. Where contempt is alleged against a company, the applicant must also prove conduct attributable to the company. The principles summarised in PJSC v Vseukrainskyi Aktsionernyi Bank [2014] EWHC 3771 (Comm) were accepted.
3. Circumstantial evidence may establish contempt, but the court must consider whether another reasonable inference is available. If a reasonable inference is inconsistent with contempt, the applicant fails. The evidence here, including an unverified article by an unidentified reporter, did not meet that standard.
4. The allegation concerning the contents of discussions was fatally deficient. The application notice had to identify with sufficient particularity what was disclosed. It could not be supplemented by evidence or later argument. The principles in The Lord Mayor and Citizens of Westminster v Addbins [2012] EWHC 3716 (QB) were applied.
5. Rangers had not been shown to be responsible for Mr King’s interview. A chairman does not ordinarily possess authority to bind a company by exceptionally sensitive public statements. There was no evidence of actual, usual or ostensible authority. The reasoning in Rama v Proved Tin [1952] 2 QB 147 and Healy-Hutchinson v Bray Head Ltd [1968] 1 QB 549 (CA) was relied on.
6. The order had not been personally served on either respondent as required by the relevant rules. Although the court had a broad discretion under CPR 81.8, the deliberate failure to serve Mr King personally, his absence from the hearing, and uncertainty whether he had read the order justified refusing to dispense with service.
7. Finally, committal was disproportionate. The application involved serious procedural and evidential defects, substantial costs and limited demonstrated benefit. It was therefore an abuse of process, without deciding whether the alleged disclosures might be established at the later trial.

First-instance decision. The judgment records no appeal or earlier merits decision concerning the committal application.