KF 2024 010445 - [2025] EWHC 1584 (KB)

In October 2019, the First Respondent contracted with the Applicant to design, develop and implement a new real-time vehicle configurator sales tool for the launch of the First Respondent’s new Rolls-Royce “Ghost” motor car. This contractual relationship did not end well. Proceedings have been commenced in three separate jurisdictions, England and Wales, the United States of America and Germany.

The parties have been engaged in a breach of contract claim, concerning termination of the 2019 contract, since September 2020. Proceedings were issued in the TCC and remain ongoing (the “Contract Proceedings”). The substantive first instance decision in the Contract Proceedings was handed down by O’Farrell J on 12 July 2023, finding that the First Respondent was entitled to terminate the contract and awarding damages in its favour, see Topalsson v Rolls-Royce [2023] EWHC 1765 (TCC). On 5 November 2024, the Court of Appeal allowed the Applicant’s appeal in part and reduced the damages award, see Topalsson v Rolls-Royce [2024] EWCA Civ 1330. In giving judgment, Coulson LJ referred to the fact that the Applicant had not paid the judgment debt or an interim costs order and that there remained a dispute between the parties as to whether the Applicant had complied with two funding disclosure orders made in the Contract Proceedings. Coulson LJ observed that the Applicant’s failures in this regard were a reason why he would have declined to exercise the Court’s discretion to permit a late amendment sought by the Applicant, see paragraphs [6]-[9] and [56] of the Judgment. The adequacy of the Applicant’s compliance with the funding disclosure orders in the Contract Proceedings, is the subject of a committal application in those Proceedings, brought by the First Respondent on 15 April 2025 against both the Applicant and Mr Topal (the Applicant’s founder and CEO).