CA-2025-000597 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1458

Following the liability judgment, on 13^th August 2024 FWA issued an application to amend its contempt application by adding three new grounds of contempt, two of which – referred to as grounds 3(a) and 3(c) – related to the Letters. In each case, FWA alleges that in sending the Letters VietJet:

‘intentionally interfer[ed] with the administration of justice by attempting to circumvent the prohibition on VietJet from interfering with the Claimant’s right to possession, custody and/or control of the Aircraft under paragraph 1 of the Prohibitory Injunction.’

We are not concerned with the third new ground of contempt, numbered 3(b), for which Mr Justice Picken refused permission to amend.

It was not initially clear whether it was FWA’s case that VietJet had infringed the injunction by sending the Letters. However, at the hearing of the amendment application, Mr Richard Lissack KC confirmed that FWA did not allege a breach of the injunction. Rather, its case was that, by sending the Letters, VietJet indirectly undermined the rights conferred on FWA by the orders of the court and that it acted in attempted circumvention of the injunction. In response, VietJet argued, among other things, that it could not be liable for contempt by attempting to circumvent the injunction if what it had actually done was not alleged to be a breach of the injunction.