Blade Motor Group Ltd v Reynolds & Reynolds Ltd

For an interim injunction, the court must first identify a serious issue to be tried, then assess the adequacy of damages and, if necessary, the balance of convenience. A mandatory injunction requires particular care because positive relief may create a greater risk of injustice if wrongly granted. The court should consider whether it has a high degree of assurance that the claimant will establish its right, but that is not an absolute requirement. The decisive question remains which course carries the lower risk of injustice. Delay is relevant, especially where the claimant says the matter is urgent. The status quo is generally the position existing when the application is made.

The claimant operated motor dealerships and relied on the defendant’s dealer-management software to access historic business and customer data. After migrating to another system, the claimant was blocked from accessing the defendant’s software and sought a mandatory interim injunction restoring access pending trial of claims for rectification and specific performance.

The defendant accepted that there was a serious issue to be tried but disputed the adequacy of the claimant’s evidence concerning irreparable loss. The central issues were whether damages were an adequate remedy and, if not, where the balance of convenience lay.

1. Application refused. The claimant had established a serious issue to be tried, as the defendant conceded. The court therefore applied the approach in American Cyanamid Co v Ethicom Ltd [1975] AC 396.
2. Damages were an adequate remedy on the evidence. The asserted consequences of blocked access, including audit difficulties, regulatory or manufacturer penalties, warranty losses and reputational harm, were insufficiently evidenced as unquantifiable. The relevant data were historic, current data were available in the replacement system, and financial losses could be recorded and assessed.
3. The order sought was mandatory. Applying the principles drawn from Films Rover International Ltd v Cannon Film Sales Ltd [1987] 1 WLR 670, Nottingham Building Society v Eurodynamics Systems Plc [1993] FSR 468 and Zockoll Group Ltd v Mercury Communications Ltd [1997] EWCA Civ 2317; [1998] 1 FSR 354, the overriding consideration was the lower risk of injustice if the decision proved wrong. A high degree of assurance that the claimant would succeed was relevant, but not indispensable.
4. The status quo was the position when the application was issued: the claimant had no access to the software. Restoring access would therefore be a positive alteration. The court lacked a high degree of assurance that the claimant would establish an implied contractual term or unilateral mistake.
5. The claimant’s approximately six-month delay after access was blocked weighed against relief. The court distinguished the shorter delay considered in Handi-Craft Co v B Free World Ltd [2005] EWHC 1307 (Pat). The risk of injustice from refusing relief did not sufficiently outweigh the risk from granting it.

not stated in the judgment.