BLL v STI

Under section 44(3) of the Arbitration Act 1996, urgency is a jurisdictional requirement, and an order must be necessary to preserve evidence or assets. A party cannot rely on urgency materially created by its own delay in invoking arbitration; that delay may also weigh against relief in the court’s discretion. Mandatory injunctions require a high degree of assurance on the merits and are granted sparingly, particularly where they would intrude on matters for an arbitral tribunal. Temporary business interruption may be compensable in damages absent evidence of existential loss, although permanent data loss may be different. Relief must also be sufficiently clear, practicable and supported by an apparent contractual entitlement.

BLL operated a digital gift-card platform hosted and supported by STI. After a cyber incident, BLL sought urgent mandatory injunctions under section 44 of the Arbitration Act 1996, including continued platform access and support, preservation and disclosure of technical materials, and access to system infrastructure. BLL relied on a 2016 development agreement with an arbitration clause, while STI disputed that it had become party to that agreement and said its hosting relationship was terminable on notice. STI had announced that support would end and later extended the platform’s planned closure. The parties agreed that the hearing, although formally without notice, should determine the right to relief after submissions from both sides, and that the service applications would stand or fall with the substantive relief. The central questions were whether the application met the urgency and merits thresholds for mandatory interim relief and whether damages were adequate.

1. Application dismissed. The court held that urgency is part of the jurisdictional threshold under section 44(3) of the Arbitration Act 1996. STI had given notice of its position on 30 March 2026, but BLL had not begun arbitration or tried to appoint an arbitrator. The planned decommissioning had been extended to the end of August, leaving time for an arbitral tribunal to consider interim relief. Any present urgency was materially self-created; even if that did not remove jurisdiction, it weighed against relief in the court’s discretion (paras 65–68).
2. Section 44(3) also requires the order to be necessary to preserve evidence or assets. The court noted that a contractual right may itself be an asset and that an interim order may require a preliminary view of disputed contractual rights, but stressed the need for caution. It would be for an arbitrator to decide whether the development agreement, or particular obligations under it, had been novated to STI. The court made no finding on novation. It observed that novation may cover only some obligations, so the parties’ all-or-nothing positions might be incomplete (paras 8–10, 72–76).
3. The requested relief was mandatory in substance. Such relief required a high degree of assurance on the merits and an unusually strong and clear case. Although there were serious issues to be tried about the governing contract and notice period, the evidence did not give the court the required assurance. The court had to avoid deciding contractual questions that belonged to the arbitrator, and the closer an injunction came to determining such a question, the greater the caution required. The court also could not determine an alternative claim based on a simple contract without further argument on jurisdiction (paras 70–79).
4. Damages were an adequate remedy for temporary business interruption. BLL had not shown, beyond assertion, that a temporary outage would cause its business to collapse. Financial loss during a defined interruption could be assessed in damages. Permanent loss of data might be different, but STI had offered to preserve or provide the materials in its possession that were specific to BLL’s site (paras 80–82, 87, 92).
5. The court also considered the individual orders. The proposed continuing support obligation was too vague to define and police, with a risk of exposing STI’s staff to contempt proceedings. Some other orders were impracticable, went beyond any apparent contractual entitlement, or sought creation of new material. The requested preservation and disclosure of site-specific materials went no further than STI’s existing offer, which the order’s recitals were to record. The court did not separately assess the balance of convenience. The collateral service applications stood or fell with the substantive relief (paras 83–93).

not stated in the judgment.