When determining the law applicable to non-contractual obligations under article 4(1) of European Parliament and Council Regulation 864/2007/EC of 31 July 2007 (“Rome II”), the applicable law is not the place where the damage predominantly occurs. If damage occurs across several jurisdictions, there will be several applicable laws (para 44).
Where, therefore, the Israeli and Luxembourg claimants brought a claim for unlawful means conspiracy arising out of tweets concerning the first claimant published by the defendant on a Twitter account in which the claimants sought to recover, inter alia, costs incurred in hiring investigators and lawyers in England to investigate the conspiracy, and the defendant made an application for strike out alternatively summary judgment, inter alia, on the ground that, to the extent that the claimants had suffered loss or damage as a result of the conspiracy, the place of that loss or damage was not England and therefore the applicable law under article 4(1) of Rome II was not English law—
Held, application refused on this point. The costs of investigating the conspiracy were incurred when the claimants entered into the agreements with investigators and lawyers to have the conspiracy investigated, and therefore in England, and it did not matter that those costs were not the claimants’ predominant loss (paras 40, 46).
Michael Lazarus (instructed by PCB Litigation llp) for the claimants.
Jonathan Cohen QC (instructed by Kingsley Napley llp) for the defendant.