While Lord Justice Warby acknowledged there was an argument that strict liability might apply, he chose to take no action since ‘further proceedings would be disproportionate to any need to uphold the court's authority’, in InterDigital Technology v Lenovo [2023] EWCA Civ 57. Lord Justice Birss and Lady Justice Falk agreed.
InterDigital counsel Steve Akerley, on holiday at the time, read the draft judgment on a mobile device and disclosed the outcome to the company’s US law firm under the heading ‘confidential’.
The email was then forwarded to five team members, one of whom congratulated InterDigital’s solicitor Gowling partner Alexandra Brodie, who immediately replied: 'Thank you but unfortunately that is a breach of the embargo. Who else did he tell?'
Last February, Sir Geoffrey Vos MR warned that those who breach embargoes should expect to face contempt proceedings, in R (on the application of Counsel General for Wales) v Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [2022] EWCA Civ 181.
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