Ramona ANG v Reliantco Investments Ltd

Under Section 4 of the Brussels (Recast), the question is whether a private individual contracted for purposes outside any business, trade or profession. Wealth, expertise, investment scale, regularity and risk do not by themselves prevent consumer status. Speculative investment of surplus personal wealth can be a private consumption purpose, although the issue remains fact-sensitive. The relevant purpose must be assessed from all the evidence. Direct trading through an online platform is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish an investment business. A jurisdiction agreement satisfying Article 25 cannot displace the consumer jurisdiction rules. The application therefore failed.

Reliantco, a Cyprus company operating an online leveraged trading platform, challenged the English court’s jurisdiction over claims by Ms Ang concerning the closure of her Bitcoin futures account and alleged data-protection breaches. It relied on an exclusive Cyprus jurisdiction clause and Article 25 of the Brussels (Recast). Ms Ang contended that she was a consumer under Section 4 and that the clause was not effectively incorporated. The principal issue was whether her investment of personal surplus wealth was undertaken for a private purpose or as part of a business, trade or profession.

1. Consumer status. The application was dismissed. The autonomous concept of consumer under Article 17 concerns a private individual contracting as an end user for personal purposes, rather than for the purpose of a business, trade or profession. The concept is not limited by the individual’s wealth, knowledge, expertise or financial sophistication.
2. Speculative investment is not inherently a business activity. A private individual may invest surplus personal wealth for growth or income and remain a consumer. Investment scale, frequency and value may be relevant evidence, but cannot replace the statutory question of purpose. The issue must be decided on the whole evidence.
3. The use of an intermediary is neither necessary nor sufficient for consumer status. A consumer may manage investments directly. The account-opening information did not reasonably create the impression that Ms Ang was contracting for a professional trading business, so it was unnecessary to decide whether Reliantco had actually formed such an impression.
4. Jurisdiction agreement. Had Ms Ang not been a consumer, the signed hard-copy acceptance of Reliantco’s standard terms would have satisfied Article 25 independently. The terms were also reasonably accessible for the purposes of the click-wrapping analysis in El Majdoub v Cars On the Web.Deutschland GmbH [2015] 1 WLR 2986.
5. Data protection claims. The court observed that Article 79 of the GDPR, protected by Article 67 of the Brussels (Recast), would permit the pleaded GDPR claim to be brought in England notwithstanding Article 25. The Data Protection Act 1998 contained no equivalent jurisdiction provision. These issues were unnecessary to the result because the consumer rule defeated the challenge entirely.