The Supreme Court has set a timetable for an appeal by Protégé International Group (Cyprus) Limited and Avalon International Management Inc against Irish Distillers Limited, directing that the dispute over two appeal grounds be considered with the other issues at the main hearing.
Chief Justice Frank Clarke made the directions at a remote first case management meeting on 1 October 2020. He directed the parties to file legal submissions on the dates they had jointly proposed: the appellants by 16 October and Irish Distillers by 6 November.
The respondent, Irish Distillers, contends that Grounds 3 and 6 in the notice of appeal are inadmissible because, it says, the appellants did not raise certain issues in the lower courts. The appellants dispute that position, referring to submissions and appeal grounds raised earlier and to applicable EU law principles. Those positions remain submissions by the parties; the ruling did not decide whether either ground is admissible.
The parties agreed that the admissibility dispute should be determined alongside the other appeal issues rather than at a preliminary hearing. The Chief Justice accepted that approach, saying a separate hearing would not be an appropriate use of the parties’ or court’s time and resources. The parties did not expect the court to rule on admissibility during the appeal hearing itself.
The court will allocate a full day to the appeal, with two hours for the appellants’ submissions, one hour and 45 minutes for Irish Distillers, and 15 minutes for the appellants’ reply. The ruling did not set a hearing date. It directed the parties to file two copies of proposed appeal materials for review by 11 November. If those materials are considered sufficient, the court said it would direct further filing to allow a hearing to proceed on a date to be fixed, most likely in early December.
The parties did not take a position on whether this appeal should be heard by the same panel as, or around the same time as, the appeal in Quinn Insurance Limited (Under Administration) v PwC. They did not object to the court taking that appeal into account in setting the time and panel, provided this appeal retained a full day. The appellants also maintained a possible request for an Article 267 TFEU reference, while Irish Distillers said no reference was necessary. No decision on that issue was made at the case management meeting.