CL-2025-000010 and CL-2025-000091 - [2025] EWHC 1842 (Comm)

The Greek Proceedings do not involve re-litigation of matters which were or ought to have been decided in the earlier English proceedings. The Directors were not party to the English proceedings, and it will be a very rare case in which it will be abusive to pursue claims against someone who was not a party to earlier litigation on the basis that they should have been joined to that litigation (Aldi StoresLtdv WSP Group plc [2007] EWCA Civ 1260, [5]-[6], [10], [26]). Further, the single paragraph complaint in the 2024 Commercial Court proceedings is addressed at [9] above. As WRL recognised at the time, the matters in this paragraph were not relevant, and they do not thereafter appear to have featured in the proceedings. The allegations against WRL in the second set of English proceedings are not being pursued and have not and will not be the subject of adjudication (see [11] above).

The Greek Proceedings do not seek to impugn the Court of Appeal’s conclusions regarding the construction of the call options, and while complaint is made about the Directors’ refusal to look to negotiate an agreed exit for JPM from Viva, this does not come close to the vice of re-litigation.

There was originally a short reference in the Greek Proceedings to material which WRL and the Directors say is subject to without prejudice privilege, but which JPM alleges has lost that status by reason of the deployment of part of that material by WRL. In any event, the reference was removed from the Greek Proceedings by agreement before the claims for ASI relief were made. This point goes nowhere.