CL-2025-000062 - [2025] EWHC 1506 (Comm)

There was no real difference between the parties on the applicable principles of law, although there was a predictable difference in emphasis.

Although some of the older authorities suggest that distinct principles apply to the grant of mandatory relief, the more recent cases favour the view that the underlying principles for the grant of interim prohibitory and mandatory injunctions are the same, as explained by Lord Hoffmann in National Commercial Bank Jamaica Ltd v Olint Corporation Ltd [2009] 1 WLR 1405 (PC) [19].

“In both cases, the underlying principle is the same, namely, that the court should take whichever course seems likely to cause the least irremediable prejudice to one party or the other.”

However, as Gee on Commercial Injunctions (7th edn) notes, at 2-041:

“What one can say is that mandatory injunctions are in their nature liable to be more intrusive, result in greater risk in contempt proceedings, result in greater waste of time and money if they are “wrong” and have to be undone, and are more likely to affect the status quo.”

Accordingly the irremediable prejudice test itself drives a conclusion that informs the earlier dicta, namely that: