CL-2025-000380 - [2025] EWHC 2462 (Comm)

AgLLC was not formed until 27 May 2025 and it does not appear to have acquired any licence in relation to the Envelop Technology until 14 June 2025. In his witness statement, Mr Misselbrook stated that AgLLC “is party to the DTSA proceedings because it, as the US entity which having the exclusive-US IP rights, is the one suffering the most direct loss in the US”. However, the legal basis on which AgLLC is able to claim for any wrongful acts occurring prior to its acquisition of the exclusive US-IP rights remains unexplained.

To the extent that it brings claims in respect of matters occurring prior to the latter date (and in the Complaint, it does), it is difficult to see on what basis it can do so other than through rights derived from others (and none was explained). On the material before the court, those rights appear to have been derived from ATL who assigned its claims against Croda Europe to AgLLC by an “assignment and enforcement consent clause” dated 14 June 2025. I was not referred to any other bases for the claims asserted by AgLLC in the Delaware Proceedings. It follows that on the material before me, I am satisfied that there is a high probability that the claims asserted by AgLLC in the Delaware Proceedings comprise rights derived from AL which rights are subject to the EJC. For the same reasons as in relation to ATL, I am satisfied interim ASI relief is appropriate on quasi-contractual grounds against AgLLC in respect of claims against Croda Europe.