LONDON EV COMPANY LIMITED v OPTIMAS OE SOLUTIONS LIMITED

An interim mandatory injunction should not be granted where the proposed order is insufficiently certain to reflect contractual obligations, damages appear to provide an adequate remedy, and the balance of convenience favours refusal. A contractual damages regime is a significant indication that breach is capable of being compensated in damages. The court should assess the practical availability and cost of alternative performance, the evidential basis for alleged loss, and the relative risk of injustice.

London EV Company Limited sought an interim mandatory injunction requiring Optimas OE Solutions Limited to continue supplying fasteners under a 2017 supply agreement and to perform alleged supplementary vendor-managed services. The application was revised to include a schedule of broadly expressed operational, quality and investigation obligations. The court considered whether there was a serious issue or sufficient merits, whether damages would be an adequate remedy, and where the balance of convenience lay.

1. Application dismissed. The court declined to grant the interim mandatory injunction.
2. The court was prepared to assume that the merits hurdle was met for the alleged breach concerning the written supply agreement, relating to the granularity of payment requests for excess and obsolete inventory. It was also prepared to assume that the merits hurdle was met for some service aspects.
3. The supplementary service obligations could not justify the proposed schedule. There was no concluded document evidencing those obligations, no sufficient evidence of a course of business giving rise to them, and some proposed terms were too vague to operate as contractual terms. The parties had continued discussing some matters and had not fully agreed them.
4. Damages appeared to be an adequate remedy. The agreement was, on its face, structured around a damages remedy and contained a clause addressing recoverable damages. Treating the agreed limitation of damages as a reason to grant an injunction would be illogical and unprincipled.
5. The alleged consequences of refusing relief were insufficiently established. Optimas offered to supply, other suppliers were available, and the additional cost could be recovered in damages. The asserted loss associated with long lead times was speculative and based on an incomplete assessment.
6. Although there were concerns about the claimant’s financial position, the proposed injunction was unlikely to reflect the parties’ actual contractual agreement. The greater risk of injustice lay in granting relief rather than refusing it. The balance of convenience therefore favoured dismissal.