A court had issued a final order with an injunction against the respondent against revealing matters becoming known to him during his employment by the claimant. The BBC sought a variation to allow it to broadcast material based upon that documents held by the defendant.
Held: A final order was not binding against third parties. Once the proceedings had concluded, and a final order made, those proceedings could not be prejudiced, and the law of contempt no longer applied. The BBC was not bound by the injunction.
Judges:
Gray J
Citations:
[2003] QB 462, Times 04-Oct-2002, Gazette 17-Oct-2002, [2002] EWHC 1866 (QB)
Links:
Citing:
Cited – Attorney-General v Times Newspapers Ltd HL 1991
Injunctions had been granted to preserve the status quo in proceedings brought to prevent the publication of the book ‘Spycatcher’. The defendants published extracts, and now appealed a finding that they had acted in contempt.
Held: The . .
Cited – Steen v Her Majesty’s Attorney General; Attorney-General v Punch Ltd and Another CA 23-Mar-2001
The appellant appealed against a finding of contempt of court at common law as regards a report in Punch published when he had been its editor.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The A-G had failed to establish the mens rea of contempt in the . .
Cited by:
Cited – X and Y v Persons Unknown QBD 8-Nov-2006
The claimants sought an injunction against unknown persons who were said to have divulged confidential matters to newspapers. The order had been served on newspapers who now complained that the order was too uncertain to allow them to know how to . .
Cited – Hutcheson v Popdog Ltd and Another CA 19-Dec-2011
The claimant had obtained an injunction to prevent the defendant publishing private materials regarding him. That injunction had been continued by consent but was no challenged by a third party news publisher.
Held: Leave to appeal was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contempt of Court, Media, Intellectual Property, Litigation Practice
Updated: 06 June 2022; Ref: scu.177311
