UK Oil & Gas Plc (Previously Known As UK Oil & Gas Investments Plc) & Ors v Persons Unknown & Ors

Injunctions against protestors must maintain a fair and proportionate balance between lawful protest and the claimant’s private-law rights. In protestor proceedings, interim relief requires a serious question to be tried, damages to be inadequate, and a sufficiently real and imminent risk of a civil wrong. The injunction must be clear and precise, with defined geographical and temporal limits. Where human rights are engaged, the court must consider whether the restriction on freedom of expression and assembly is prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society. Relief may properly restrain physical trespass, climbing onto vehicles and obstruction preventing access, while leaving lawful protest outside the site unaffected.

The claimants, companies involved in oil and gas extraction, sought to join additional protestors as named defendants and to extend and revise an existing interim injunction concerning protests at the Horse Hill site. Existing defendants also applied to strike out the proceedings or discharge or vary the injunction, relying particularly on Canada Goose UK Retail Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 303.

The applications concerned joinder, the scope of interim relief against named and persons-unknown defendants, and the compatibility of the proposed restrictions with freedom of expression and assembly. The central issues were whether there was a sufficient basis for interim injunctive relief and whether the revised terms struck a fair balance between protestors’ rights and the claimants’ property and business interests.

1. Disposition. The proposed defendants 17 to 29 were joined, except defendant 21. The injunction was revised and extended to defendants 22 to 27. Defendants 28 and 29 were joined under a consent order, with further proceedings against them stayed. The trial was shortened and relisted, and the interim injunction was given a final expiry date.
2. Procedural framework. Applying the guidance in Canada Goose UK Retail Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 303, identified persons must be joined as individual defendants. A category of persons unknown must be defined by reference to the allegedly unlawful conduct. Interim relief requires a sufficiently real and imminent risk of a tort, and the order must be clear, precise and subject to geographical and temporal limits.
3. Interim injunction criteria. The court was satisfied that there was a serious question to be tried and that damages would not be an adequate remedy. The claimants’ case concerned trespass, obstruction and possible interference with chattels or unlawful means, with the latter principle supported by OBG Ltd v Allan [2008] 1 AC 1.
4. Proportionality. Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights were engaged. The narrowed injunction fairly balanced the competing rights because it restrained only physical trespass, climbing onto vehicles and obstruction preventing entry to or exit from the site. It did not prevent standing outside the site or slow walking that did not physically obstruct access.
5. The court found a sufficiently real and imminent risk of further wrongdoing in relation to defendants 22 to 27, having regard to their recent conduct and the evidence of an ongoing protest campaign. The final order was required to exclude persons unknown and could operate only against named defendants.