BL-2025-001269 and BL-2024-001337 - [2025] EWHC 2706 (Ch)

The claim to the injunction is a claim to an interim injunction, which invokes American Cyanamid considerations. However, the nature and timing of this application, and the proximity of the trial, means that, as both parties agreed, the nature of the consideration required was more akin to a trial of the real issue - should De Beers be restrained from settling a claim brought against them in South Carolina if it wished to do so. That is therefore the issue on which I will focus, though I will have to make some reference to underlying points which theoretically go to whether there is a serious question to be tried (ie what CIHL’s causes of action are). There was little real analysis before me of the question of the adequacy of damages either way.