Neutral Citation Number: [2008] EWHC 1974 (QB)

Case No: HQ08X02801

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Date: 4th August 2008

Before:

MR. JUSTICE OPENSHAW

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Between:

UBS WEALTH MANAGEMENT (UK) LTD Claimants

UBS AG LONDON BRANCH
- and -
VESTRA WEALTH LLP Defendants
DAVID SCOTT
DUNCAN CARMICHEL-JACK
DAVID GUILD
NEIL PEDLEY
PAUL POLLARD

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Mr. Alistair McGregor QC and Mr. Gavin Mansfield (instructed by Messrs Herbert Smith)
for the Claimants
Mr. Andrew Sutcliffe QC (instructed by Messrs Fox Williams) for the 1st and 2nd
Defendants
Mr. Charles Bear QC and Mr. Akash Nawbatt (instructed by Messrs Farrers) for the 3rd to
6th Defendants

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Approved Judgment
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 MR. JUSTICE OPENSHAW UBS Wealth Management v Vestra and Others
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MR. JUSTICE OPENSHAW :

1. In this action the claimants, UBS Wealth Management (UK) Limited (“UBS”) and
UBS AG London Branch (“UBS AG”) seek an injunction for springboard relief
against the defendants pending a speedy trial, which cannot now take place until the
beginning of next term in early October. The case came before me listed as a matter
of urgency in the interim application court on Friday. I heard argument all day, and I
adjourned judgment over the weekend to give me a little time to reflect.

2. The jurisdiction to grant springboard relief is derived from the case of Roger Bullivant
v Ellis [1987] ICR 464, which was a case based upon the unlawful use of confidential
information wrongly taken by an employee, which he sought to use for the benefit of
a competitor to the detriment of his former employer. The purpose of injunctive relief
was said by Nourse LJ at page 476G:

“To prevent the defendants from taking unfair advantage of the

springboard which [the judge] considered that they must have
built up by their misuse of the information.”

3. There is some discussion in the authorities as to whether springboard relief is limited

to cases where there is a misuse of confidential information. Such a limitation was
expressly rejected in Midas IT Services v Opus Portfolio Limited, an unreported
decision of Blackburne J made on 21st December 1999, although it seems to have
been accepted by Scott J in Balston Limited and Another v Headline Filters Limited
and Another [1987] FSR 330 at 340. In the twenty years which have passed since that
case, it seems to me that the law has developed; and I see no reason in principle by
which it should be so limited.

4. In my judgment, springboard relief is not confined to cases where former employees

threaten to abuse confidential information acquired during the currency of their
employment. It is available to prevent any future or further serious economic loss to a
previous employer caused by former staff members taking an unfair advantage, an
“unfair start”, of any serious breaches of their contract of employment (or if they are
acting in concert with others, of any breach by any of those others). That unfair
advantage must still exist at the time that the injunction is sought, and it must be
shown that it would continue unless restrained. I accept that injunctions are to protect
against and to prevent future and further losses and must not be used merely to punish
past breaches of contract.

5. Valuable guidance as to how the court should proceed when faced with stark conflicts
of evidence is given by the judgment of Staughton LJ in Lansing Linde Ltd v Kerr
[1991] 1 WLR 251 at 258A-D:

“If it will not be possible to hold a trial before the period for
which the plaintiff claims to be entitled to an injunction has
expired, or substantially expired, it seems to me that justice
requires some consideration as to whether the plaintiff would
be likely to succeed at a trial. In those circumstances it is not
enough to decide merely that there is a serious issue to be tried.
The assertion of such an issue should not operate as a lettre de
cachet, by which the defendant is prevented from doing that
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which, as it later turns out, he has a perfect right to do, for the
whole or substantially the whole of the period in question. On
a wider view of the balance of convenience it may still be right
to impose such a restraint, but not unless there has been some
assessment of the plaintiff’s prospects of success. I would
emphasise ‘some assessment’, because the courts constantly
seek to discourage prolonged interlocutory battles on affidavit
evidence. I do not doubt that Lord Diplock, in enunciating the
American Cyanamid doctrine, had in mind what its effect
would be in that respect. Where an assessment of the prospects
of success is required, it is for the judge to control its extent.”

6. In an interim application of this kind, all that I can do is to form the best view that I
can of the relative strengths of the rival arguments as I must now attempt to do. I
need briefly to set out the background.

7. UBS is a wealth management business, giving advice to clients on the investment of

their assets. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UBS AG. In recent years, UBS
bought out two traditional stockbroking firms. One was Laing and Cruickshank, a
business formerly managed by Mr. Kerr-Dineen, and another was the much smaller
operation, Scott, Goodman and Harris, formerly managed by the second defendant,
Mr. Scott.

8. Following these buyouts, the staff, or most of the staff, of those firms were offered
jobs at UBS. Many of the clients of those stockbroking firms transferred their
business to UBS so that they could continue to deal with the same financial advisers.
In the management of their wealth, individual private investors have individual needs,
characteristics and attributes, and they value individual treatment, confidence and
even friendship which familiar and trusted advisers can provide.

9. When Mr. Scott and his team sold out to UBS, they were paid handsomely.
Furthermore, during the course of their employment, they were paid large salaries
with substantial bonuses. Their contracts of employment imposed upon them various
restrictive covenants barring them out during the course of their employment and for
some time thereafter from trading in competition to UBS, from soliciting staff away
from UBS and from soliciting clients away from UBS. Whether the terms of those
covenants and, in particular, the length of time during which they are to run after the
conclusion of their employment will be upheld will be a matter for the trial judge to
determine. Subject to the length for which they are to run, those covenants are in
usual form.

10. Every business is entitled to expect loyalty, fidelity and diligence from its staff. That
is part of the bargain for which they are paid. It is only right that during the currency
of their employment and for so long as is reasonable during the currency of their
restrictive covenants thereafter, they should serve and respect the legitimate interests
of their employer or former employer and their clients. The more senior the staff, the
greater the remuneration and the greater the degree of loyalty, fidelity and diligence is
required.

11. It is clear from the four lever arch files of evidence put before me that there are many
complex disputes of fact between the parties which will eventually fall to be decided
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by the trial judge. It is however quite clear that there were tensions as those members
of staff who had previously had a large measure of investment autonomy within the
stockbrokers’ firms found difficulty in conforming to the culture and working
practices within UBS which, understandably and necessarily, had in place their
corporate systems and protocols without which no commercial organisation can
effectively and efficiently operate. The failure to resolve those tensions was the
essential reason why Mr. Kerr-Dineen left UBS in 2006, taking with him a large
number of its staff to found a new start-up business (Cheviot Asset Management).
Many of their clients followed them.

12. After UBS had commenced proceedings against him, he negotiated with UBS what he
has called, in a letter of 10th July 2008 (bundle 3, tab 2, page 14) “a structured and
consensual exit”, as the result of which UBS let them go. As a result of those
departures, the second defendant, Mr. Scott, was promoted to be the head of UBS. He
had the responsibility of stabilising the business after these defections to Cheviot.
The other defendants were appointed senior managers at UBS.

13. The circumstances which gave rise to Mr. Scott’s dissatisfaction and disillusionment
with UBS will be a matter for the trial judge to determine, but it seems clear, on the
evidence available to me, that the tensions to which I have referred continued and
may be even increased as Mr. Scott felt, rightly or wrongly, that the skills which he
and his team had brought to UBS were not being deployed to their best advantage. In
May 2007, Mr. Scott also resigned. UBS were anxious to enforce their restrictive
covenants. Following negotiations, he agreed with UBS that he would be bound by
the barring out covenants but for a few months only, which expired on 1 st September
2007.

14. Thereafter, Mr. Scott founded a new start-up business called Vestra Wealth LLP
(“Vestra”). Vestra is now the first defendant in this action. Quite how Mr. Scott went
about recruiting his staff is keenly disputed, and that dispute will lie at the heart of the
trial. On 19th May of this year, Mr. Scott went to the offices of UBS and handed in a
letter of resignation from 52 separate employees. Each letter was written in the same,
or very similar, terms. He had offered all 52 employees a job at Vestra. All 52 had
accepted. In the weeks and months that followed, a further 23 employees of UBS
resigned from UBS having accepted jobs offered by Mr. Scott at Vestra, making to
date a total of 75 defections from UBS to Vestra.

15. I accept, of course, that the public interest requires that those with skill and enterprise
are entitled to deploy their talents so as to generate wealth and employment for
themselves and others. Our market economy is based on the encouragement and
protection of fair competition. Such a right has been recognised many times, perhaps
most clearly in the judgment of Cumming-Bruce LJ in G.D. Searle & Co. v Celltech
Ltd [1982] FSR 92 at page 99:

“The court seeks to uphold the obligation of free contracting

parties to a contract of service to honour their contractual
obligations. On the other hand, the court seeks to respect the
rights of servants to advance in their chosen trade and
profession, and in this connection to promote their own private
interest by changing their employment, and also to promote the
 MR. JUSTICE OPENSHAW UBS Wealth Management v Vestra and Others
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public interest by better use of the servants’ personal aptitudes,

experience and skill.”

At page 101:

“The picture that emerges is the market for labour in operation

for the benefit of the employees and of the public, but in the
short term, naturally to the disadvantage of the employer who
loses in the competitive bargaining process. The usual
procedure by which a business protects itself from competition
for its employees is a restrictive covenant; that is conspicuous
by its absence in the relevant contracts. If there were such
covenants, the employee could invite the court to avoid them if
on accepted principles of law they were unreasonable in their
width or their duration … The law has always looked with
favour upon the efforts of employees to advance themselves,
provided that they do not steal or use the secrets of their former
employer. In the absence of restrictive covenants, there is
nothing in the general law to prevent a number of employees in
concert deciding to leave their employer and set themselves up
in competition with him.”

16. I stress that the circumstances in which this mass defection came about will be for the
trial judge to determine. I accept that after Mr. Scot had served his time of being
barred out on 1st September 2007, he was entitled to start up his own new business. I
accept that he was then entitled to recruit former colleagues at UBS. I accept that he
was then entitled to seek to attract clients, including clients who had been or who
were still clients of UBS. I am sure that he was given legal advice to this effect. He
claims that he followed it to the letter. He says that he personally and separately dealt
with each of the defectors and that each separately decided to come and join him
without any encouragement from any other member of the staff or management at
UBS. He concedes that the strike on 19 th May was coordinated, but he claims that it
was coordinated only by him. I accept that if this is right, then he would not have
been acting unlawfully.

17. It is his case that such was the nature of the dissatisfaction within UBS that he had no
difficulty in persuading staff to join his new start-up company. He says that not only
had the culture clash to which I have referred not been resolved but he claims that it
had increased by the threat, as he saw it, of the integration of UBS within the larger
UBS AG with the consequential further dilution of their investment autonomy and a
further advance of the UBS corporate culture to the detriment, as he claims, of the
personal and individual client care on which his version of private wealth
management was based. Furthermore, he claims that morale in UBS and, indeed,
among its clients had suffered in the wake of the credit crunch and the banks’ huge
and well-publicised losses by reason of their exposure to the sub-prime mortgage
market.

18. In the short time available, solicitors acting on his behalf have produced letters and e-
mails written by some 40 of the defectors in which they set out their personal
dissatisfaction with what they sought to be the excessively bureaucratic formulaic and
prescriptive procedures at UBS. Those are my words, but I have sought to catch the
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flavour of what they say. In these circumstances, Mr. Scott contends that the staff
were eager to jump ship when he gave them the opportunity to do so.

19. It is important to consider the scale and nature of these defections. This is best shown
in diagrammatic form in the so-called “Organogram” (bundle 1, tab 5, page 4 of Mr.
Hall’s statement). This shows at a glance that all the senior managers, that is to say
the third, fourth, fifth and sixth defendants, defected from UBS to Vestra. Of the four
so-called “core desks” handling wealth investment business, only one desk, that is
desk 4, was left intact and untouched. Of the other three core desks, each head of
department left and all the investment directors left. On desk 1, of seventeen
employees, there were fifteen defections; only two secretaries remained. On desk 2,
absolutely every one of eighteen employees left, including the secretaries. On desk 3,
of seventeen staff, fifteen defected, leaving just one junior assistant and one secretary.
In the small accounts department with a staff of four, two left. At the Taunton
branch, of a staff of eight employees, two of the three investment directors, one of the
two investment managers, and two of the three secretaries left.

20. Mr. Scott says that all this happened as a result, and only as a result, of separate
discussions between him and the separate individual employees involved. It is said
that he was the hub of this plan and the individual defectors were the spokes, and they
did not arrange or organise the defection between them. I well understand that in the
course of an interim application of this kind, when there is a keen dispute of fact and a
mass of conflicting evidence, when I have not heard the witnesses give evidence or
being challenged upon it, I cannot, indeed I must not, come to any clear conclusions
of fact. That must be a matter for the trial judge.

21. However, in order to do justice to this application, and in order to see where the
balance of convenience properly and fairly lies, I must examine the available evidence
in so far as it can properly be done within these limitations. It seems to me to be
inherently unlikely that whole departments should leave UBS en masse and join
Vestra en masse without extensive discussion between staff beforehand. This is
particularly so when they are leaving exceedingly well-paid employment at UBS for
the gamble of joining a start-up business with no track record and, as yet, few clients.
Various hints are made that Vestra was in some way backed or funded by Goldman
Sachs. I should make clear that I have seen nothing in writing to confirm this, and
there are no clear details of the nature and extent of this venture.

22. It is, to my mind, overwhelmingly likely that blandishments must have been made to
the defectors, and those blandishments must have included these vital assurances,
first, that all or nearly all the other members of the team, including the senior
members of the team, and indeed all or nearly all the members of many other teams,
including their senior members, were also going to defect; secondly, that these teams
would bring many of their clients with them; thirdly, that UBS would be so weakened
by the defections of staff and clients that there was only an uncertain future in staying
with UBS and it was therefore safer to jump with Vestra rather than stay with UBS.
Again, it is, to my mind, overwhelmingly likely that these blandishments and the
resulting defections can only have happened with the active and knowing
encouragement and assistance of many of the defectors, including particularly the
third, fourth, fifth and sixth defendants, who are senior managers within the company.
 MR. JUSTICE OPENSHAW UBS Wealth Management v Vestra and Others
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23. I think that it is also increasingly clear that there is evidence from which it may in due
course properly be inferred that Mr. Scott must have known what was going on;
indeed, he may have initiated this course of conduct. If that is found, of course he
would be a party to an unlawful conspiracy.

24. I find Mr. McGregor’s argument, that there working within UBS internal recruiting
officers, to be very persuasive. It is difficult to see how else the defections could have
been organised or coordinated on this scale. I accept the convention in the City is that
employees who are considering taking up alternative employment are under no
obligation to their existing employers to disclose ongoing negotiations unless and
until a clear agreement is made with the prospective employer, usually by the signing
of a new contract of employment. I cannot accept that employees, in particular senior
managers, can keep silent when they know of planned poaching raids upon the
company’s existing staff or client base and when these are encouraged and facilitated
from within the company itself, the more so when they are themselves party to these
plots and plans. It seems to me that that would be an obvious breach of their duties of
loyalty and fidelity to UBS.

25. If authority for this proposition is needed, it is to be found in the judgment of Hart J in
British Midland Tool v Midland International Tooling [2003] EWHC 466 Ch.

26. Mr. Hall’s affidavit contains clear and specific allegations against the fourth, fifth and
sixth defendants, which have gone entirely unanswered, except by general denial,
which is, to my mind, quite inadequate.

27. I am fortified in this view by consideration of the transcripts of some of the many
telephone calls made by some of the defectors. As a matter of routine, calls made to
or from landlines at UBS are recorded. All the staff know this. Since 19 th May, the
claimants have been examining the tens of thousands of hours of recordings in an
attempt to find evidence of what was going on. The exercise is labour-intensive. It is
far from finished. No doubt it will continue up to the trial. I do not think it is either
necessary or desirable to refer to all the particular calls made by particular named
defectors to which I have been referred, but it is already clear that there are many
extracts which may lead to the inference being drawn that the defections were not just
organised or arranged by Mr. Scott personally.

28. It is increasingly clear that there is evidence that all the departments affected had been
seething with plotting and planning for the mass exodus of staff for many months. It
seems to me to be in the highest degree likely if this claim is made out that this
sustained course of conduct would have been an obvious and clear breach of their
duties of loyalty and fidelity to UBS. It is also becoming clear that they intended to
take with them as many clients as they could. Again, if that is made out, it will be a
clear and, indeed, flagrant breach of their continuing obligations to UBS.

29. There is even some evidence -- I refer to the telephone transcript dated 19 th May,
recently transcribed, reference SD 3007081424, but there are other references in the
transcripts -- that Mr. Scott thought that his recruitments would be so successful that
the staff of UBS would be stripped out to the extent that the company would be so
weak as to no longer comply with the licensing requirements of the FSA. Clients
would then be unable to remain at UBS and would have to leave. In reality, it was
thought and hoped that they would go to Vestra.
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30. There is also evidence which would justify the inference being drawn that Mr. Scott
may have contemplated that as a further result of his raid on UBS, the company would
be so stricken and left without any or any sufficient numbers of sufficiently skilled
and experienced staff that he might be able then to buy the company up at a knock-
down price. After his restrictive covenants had expired, he was of course free to act
himself; but he was not free to assist and encourage the staff of UBS to act
collectively to sabotage UBS in breach of their own duties of loyalty and fidelity.

31. I have carefully considered the forty-odd letters written by the defectors. None
suggest any intervention by anyone other than Mr. Scott. I find this quite
unconvincing. I detect clear signs that they have been given a party line to which they
are all adhering in the face of what seems to me to be clear and obvious evidence to
the contrary.

32. There is evidence of one particularly devious refinement. Junior employees were
barred out for much shorter periods than the senior staff, typically only a couple of
months. The plan was that junior employees would leave UBS and set up in Vestra
and, using this so-called “bridgehead”, would service the former UBS clients whom
they had poached on a temporary or makeshift basis until such time as the senior
members of staff could join them and take over where they had left off and so bring
about what they claim to be a seamless transfer of clients from UBS to Vestra.

33. This seems to me an inference which could properly be drawn from the evidence and
the telephone transcript (bundle 1, tab 6, page 312) of a call between an investment
director and a client from which Mr. McGregor extracted the concept of
“bridgeheading”. The same point appears at other conversations, particularly at pages
356 and 366, of investment managers speaking to clients.

34. Perhaps they all thought that UBS would take this on the nose as they had taken the
defections to Cheviot. They may have thought that UBS may not have wanted the
possible adverse publicity of these proceedings, that UBS have this time decided to
fight back as they are entitled to do.

35. For all these reasons, I am firmly of the view that the claimants have put together a
formidable case that there was an unlawful plan to poach both staff and clients from
UBS, that that plan was formulated and actively managed by Mr. Scott, and it was at
every stage assisted and encouraged by senior staff, including each of these
defendants. This is not, as Mr. Sutcliffe QC for Mr. Scott and Vestra contends, lawful
competition dressed up as an unlawful conspiracy. It is, in my judgment, far more
likely to be an unlawful conspiracy dressed up as lawful competition.

36. I have been referred to the well-known case of Hivac Ltd v Park Royal Scientific
Instruments Ltd [1946] 1 Ch 169. This was a case where the plaintiffs’ workforce
used the skills acquired during the course of their employment to do the same work
for a rival in their spare time. Lord Green, MR, said this at page 179:

“This is a case of deliberate and secret action by these

employees, deliberate and secret action by the defendants, in
circumstances where both the employees and the defendants
must have known the exact result of what they were doing and
must have realised that what they were doing was wrong, even
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if they did not distinguish in their minds between the question

of commercial morality and legal obligation. That being so,
and there being in my opinion a prima facie case, the balance of
convenience and fairness being in favour of the injunction, I
think the learned judge who took the other view came to the
wrong conclusion.”

37. The defendants further argue that even if the claimants have established some
breaches of contract in the organisation of the mass walkout, there is no causative link
between the breaches and the staff loss because such was the dissatisfaction that
sooner or later all would have gone anyway. Furthermore, they argue that this is the
answer to the suggestion that the claimants should have had warning of their
departure so that they could have the opportunity of persuading them to stay, for, say
the defendants, such arguments would have fallen on deaf ears.

38. In my judgment, it would be one thing if these members of staff had independently
and separately decided to go at times of their own choosing, as they are entitled to do.
It is here the secret plotting to go together en masse and to join en masse a new start-
up competitor which is objectionable, for, as must have been foreseen and indeed
intended, what was sought was a knockout blow to paralyse UBS, to torpedo them, as
Mr. McGregor put it, to make it difficult for UBS properly and professionally to
continue to service their existing clients or even to comply with the FSA criteria.
UBS was entitled to their loyalty and fidelity which, it seems to me, it may not have
received. It is, to my mind, highly likely that this plotting and planning will be held to
have taken place, which would be unlawful in itself or at least an unlawful means
conspiracy.

39. I turn then to the delay upon which the defendants also rely. These defections
occurred on 19th May. The defendants say that if the claimants wanted to take action,
they should have done so promptly. Their first letters of the defectors dated 30 th May
made no mention of a pending springboard action. Instead, they waited until 16 th July
before sending a letter before action and until 18 th July before issuing proceedings,
with the result that the action was not heard until Friday, 1 st August, only one working
day before Vestra was due to start trading this morning.

40. This delay, argues Mr. Bear, on behalf of the third to sixth defendants, of itself
disentitles them to the discretionary relief of an injunction. No doubt the claimants
could have commenced proceedings earlier.

41. Mr. McGregor makes a number of points in answer to that. First, in the majority of
cases, UBS required their senior managers to work out their notice, which will not
expire until 10th August, and there was no need to take action until that period expired.
Secondly, it was their experience, when faced with the previous defections to Cheviot,
that the commencement of proceedings against the defectors was claimed rightly or
wrongly in itself to be a repudiation of the contract of employment, whereas here
UBS were keen to require the defectors to work out their notice. Thirdly, and rather
more importantly, by a letter written by UBS to Mr. Scott on 21 st May (bundle 2, tab
52, B1) UBS rehearsed his, that is to say Mr. Scott’s, claims that he was acting alone
in recruiting the defectors. They then wrote:
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“You assured [UBS] that you had taken legal advice and
followed it, that you instructed all resigning employees of UBS
to comply with their obligations to UBS, and that you were
unaware of any breaches, and certainly have not induced any.
UBS, while concerned, are at present prepared to accept these
assurances from you unless it becomes apparent that it is not
the case, in which case UBS will take vigorous action to protect
its business and franchise.”

42. That, in my judgment, was a perfectly reasonable position for them to take. It is only
the gradual transcription of the telephone calls which has provided further evidence of
the nature and extent of the plotting and planning which preceded the defections. In
my judgment, there is no culpable or inexplicable delay at all, and certainly not of the
kind which might disentitle the claimants to relief nor, it seems to me, is there any real
prejudice caused by this delay. Accordingly, I reject Mr. Bear’s argument that the
claimants have just sat on their hands, as he put it, waiting until Vestra is about to
trade before acting, nor is it, as he further argues, outrageously unjust to permit them
to act now in the changed circumstances of the further evidence becoming available.

43. I also reject entirely the suggestion that the proper undertakings by the third, fourth,
fifth and sixth defendants are sufficient. It is only a limited help to UBS that these
defendants do not in future solicit clients or staff. What is wanted is a limitation of
the damage already done. No doubt most of the staff they want may already have
gone over, but there may still be some who are vulnerable. Nothing can be done to
prevent clients who had left for Vestra before the commencement of proceedings
continuing to do business with Vestra, plainly, they cannot be compelled to return to
UBS. These clients should not be serviced by former staff of UBS in breach of their
continuing restrictive covenants. Neither until the trial of this action should the
defendants solicit further defections of staff or clients of UBS with whom they have
had recent dealings.

44. It is argued by the defendants that to impose an injunction upon a newly established
business open for trade only this very morning would be unfairly to cast over its start
up the suspicion that its inception was based on unlawfulness. I see no unfairness at
all, except to the legitimate business interests of UBS who are entitled to go to court
to protect their staff and client base against the threat of unlawful and unfair
competition, of which there seems to me to be a very strong prima facie case. Vestra
may of course continue to trade, but, as with any start-up business, must build up its
own client base and not poach the readymade client base from its previous employers
at a time when they are subject to restrictive covenants. If Vestra is indeed a start-up
business, a delay of only a couple of months will not be critical. It can, if the action
by the claimants fails, be adequately compensated in damages, whereas the loss to
UBS of its clients will be incalculable and permanent. As Mr. McGregor has put it,
unless the relief is granted, the defendants' plan will have succeeded.

45. Finally, I am asked by the defendants to consider whether anyone will benefit if an
injunction is granted. It is said that the findings necessary to sustain an injunction will
or may be damaging to each party and that the consequences of a contested action will
be so troublesome to clients that they will want to be associated with neither UBS nor
Vestra and will leave both. This, it seems to me, is a very unattractive argument to
present. There may be a commercial fallout from these proceedings and from the
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granting of this injunction. It seems to me that it is the inevitable consequence of the

defendants’ action. I cannot and will not deprive the claimants of the protection to
which they are entitled, just because the defendants think that the claimants have
made a bad commercial decision in bringing the case against them.

46. For all these reasons, I am entirely satisfied that the claimants are, in principle,
entitled to the springboard relief sought and that that should last until the trial.
Whether it will then be continued is a matter for the trial judge to determine.