BAILII is celebrating 24 years of free online access to the law! Would you consider making a contribution?
No donation is too small. If every visitor before 31 December gives just Β£1, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.
Thank you very much for your support!
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | ||
England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions |
||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions >> Aqua Global Solutions Ltd v Fiserv (Europe) Ltd [2016] EWHC 1627 (Ch) (05 July 2016) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2016/1627.html Cite as: [2016] EWHC 1627 (Ch) |
[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]
CHANCERY DIVISION
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
||
B e f o r e :
____________________
AQUA GLOBAL SOLUTIONS LIMITED |
Claimant |
|
- and - |
||
FISERV (EUROPE) LIMITED |
Defendant |
____________________
Daniel Burgess (instructed by Bryan Cave) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 11 & 13 May 2016
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
Chief Master Marsh:
The Claim
"15. On 14 July 2009, the Defendant entered into a written agreement with Tesco Personal Finance Limited ("Tesco") licensing Tesco's use of various software, a minor component of which was the Software (the "Tesco Licence Agreement").
16. The Defendant was entitled to grant such licence pursuant to rights under the CMA which had been assigned to it by FSI, the Tesco project being treated by the parties and their affiliates as a 'resell event' for the purposes of Amendment 1 to the [CMA]."
i) The Tesco Licence Agreement is directly referred to in paragraph 7 of the Particulars of Claim and in paragraph 8 the Claimant asserts that use of the Claimant's software under the Tesco Licence Agreement exceeds the volumes which were permitted.ii) The Claimant asserts that the Defendant should pay a reasonable fee for core maintenance. The Claimant says that the amount payable by Tesco for Core Maintenance will be relevant to the amount which the Defendant should pay to the Claimant.
iii) As previously noted, paragraph 15 of the Defence asserts that the Claimant's software was a "minor component" of the software supplied by the Defendant to Tesco.
iv) Paragraph 19 of the Defence refers to payments made by the Defendant to the Claimant by reference to licence fees paid by Tesco under the Tesco Licence Agreement.
v) Paragraph 3 of the Reply asserts that the terms of the Tesco Agreement are less restrictive than those contained in the CMA.
"7. Was the Defendant entitled to license the software to Tesco on the terms of the Tesco Licence Agreement? In particular, if the Defendant is correct that the parties' relationship is governed by the CMA:
(a) Did the Defendant obtain the Claimant's written consent to a sub-licence on the terms of the Tesco Licence Agreement?
(b) Are the terms of the Tesco Licence Agreement no less restrictive than those contained in Schedule B-3 of Amendment 1?"
The Tesco Licence Agreement
"As explained in paragraph 15 of the Defence the Tesco Licence Agreement governs the whole of the Defendant's licensing arrangements with Tesco Personal Finance, a minor part of which relates to the Aqua Global Solutions. Accordingly, the majority of the Tesco Licence Agreement is irrelevant to the issues in dispute between the parties.
Moreover, the Tesco Licence Agreement contains confidential and commercially sensitive information. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, the Defendant owes a duty of confidentiality to Tesco Personal Finance.
The agreement has therefore been redacted to preserve confidentiality in those parts which are commercially sensitive and irrelevant to the present dispute."
"3. The hearing of the application be adjourned to the first convenient date after 5 November 2015 (the "adjourned hearing").
4. The individual set out at paragraph 1 of Schedule A (Mr Morallee) shall, by 4.30 pm on 27 October 2015, write to the Defendant stating whether the Claimant intends to proceed with the application, and if so, setting out:
4.1 those individuals within the Claimant, if any, to whom he considers the Document [the Tesco Licence Agreement], or parts of it, should be disclosed;
4.2 the parts of the Document he considers should be disclosed to those individuals;
4.3 the grounds to be relied upon at the adjourned hearing in support of the case that such further disclosure is necessary and proportionate; and
4.4 any other ground which the Claimant intends to rely upon at the adjourned hearing."
It was later agreed that Mr Chapman QC, who appeared for the Claimant, another member of the Bar and another member of the Claimant's solicitors, Brandsmiths, would be admitted to the confidentiality ring.
Events following the order dated 21 October 2015
The law
"(1) A party may inspect a document mentioned in
(a) a statement of case;"
" I do not see why there should be need for a strict approach to a request for inspection of a specific document mentioned in one of the qualifying documents. The general ethos of the CPR is for a more cards on the table approach to litigation. If a party thinks it worthwhile to mention a document in his pleadings, witness statements or affidavits, I do not see why, subject as I say to the question of privilege, the court should put difficulties in the way of inspection. I look upon the mention of a document in pleadings etc. as a form of disclosure. The document in question has not been disclosed by list, or at any rate not yet, but it has been disclosed by mention in what, for the purposes of litigation, is another important and formal category of documents. If so, then the party deploying that document by its mention should in principle be prepared to be required to permit its inspection, and the other party should be entitled to its inspection. What in such circumstances is the virtue of coyness?"
"Even where the rule appears to give an unqualified entitlement to inspection, it appears to be within the inherent jurisdiction of the court not only to restrict or control that inspection but to prevent it, in its entirety, on grounds that the inspection is not necessary for the fair disposal of the action."
This formulation was derived from the judgment of Templeman LJ in Church of Scientology.
i) they are obiter and were made following limited submissions on the point;ii) they are derived from the Church of Scientology case, which was not a decision based upon the pre CPR equivalent of CPR 31.14 but, rather, the wider power of the court to withhold inspection of documents which have been disclosed in a list of documents;
iii) the judge was not referred to the Court of Appeal's decision in Rubin v Expandable Ltd;
iv) the decision was made in a patent case in relation to which a modified disclosure regime applies;
v) there is an obvious difference between, on the one hand, referring in a witness statement to a dossier of documents comprising approximately 1,800 pages and on the other hand to a direct reference to a single document, a commercial agreement, in a statement of case.
i) a document which is privileged, but privilege has not been waived;ii) a document which is confidential, where the court has power, on established principles, to decline to permit inspection unless proper restrictions are put in place to prevent the confidential document being inadvertently leaked or used for improper purposes;
iii) a very large volume of documents are referred to in a statement of case, where the court might form the view that on grounds of proportionality and necessity an order might be declined.
The evidence
"The invitation then is for you to agree going forward to pay us for maintenance and support of the product directly, so that the TPF installation is properly supported and maintained. Failing this we will give notice to Fiserv and you will not be maintained. Whilst Fiserv may have an obligation to you to provide support, they do not have access to the code and we do not believe in any event that they have the internal expertise to maintain it or to deal with any priority support issue. Regardless of the contract you have for support with Fiserv, given this, I believe from a corporate governance and regulatory perspective this would pose a problem for you. I am trying to pre-empt this problem."
The Defendant's case
"Where documents are irrelevant and not confidential, then it is simpler to disclose them, with the protection of the collateral undertaking. But where a document is disclosable, and there are parts of the document that are confidential, the possibility of blanking out arises.
There is no difficulty where the document contains two or more distinct subject matters, only one of which is relevant. The classic example is board minutes. There is no reason why the other side should see confidential board minutes where the minutes relate to matters nothing to do with the litigation. Another example might be where the document lists names and addresses of individuals whose identity is irrelevant but sensitive data. Where the document can be easily divided up between the relevant and irrelevant, because it deals with separate subject matters, there should be no problem either.
Blanking out is permissible even when the documents do not deal with a different subject matter. Thus, blanking out may occur of names where the identity of the individuals referred to a document is confidential and irrelevant.
A distinction should be drawn between the blanking out of names and the blanking out of a separate part of a document. Where names are blanked out, it will usually be obvious to the other party what has occurred and why, and it will be open to the other party to make an application to court in case of dispute. But where part of a document is blanked out, it will not be apparent to the other party what has been blanked out and the other party may not have the basis of a challenge. So it is the solicitor's obligation not to blank out in such circumstances unless satisfied that there is an entitlement to redact."
The Claimant's submissions
i) What proportion of the software supplied by the Claimant to Tesco does the Claimant's software form?ii) What is a reasonable fee for the Defendant to pay for maintenance obligations (and in this respect the amount Tesco pays is of significance)?
iii) Were the terms of the Tesco Licence Agreement less restrictive than those of the CMA.
Conclusions
The Defendant's application