The High Court has refused a request to determine separately, before trial, whether Irish or Dutch law governs a dispute over magnets supplied for use in wind turbines.
Mr Justice Hedigan said he was not satisfied that the governing-law question should be heard as a preliminary issue. He did not decide which country’s law applies, and the dispute remains for a full hearing.
C&F Green Energy Limited and C&F Tooling Limited, subsidiaries of the C&F Group, seek declarations and damages over alleged breach of contract and negligence concerning the magnets supplied by Dutch company Bakker Magnetic B.V. The defendant denies liability. It has counterclaimed for US$1,593,840 in unpaid invoices and US$758,486 for alleged loss of profit.
Bakker asked the court to direct a preliminary hearing on whether Dutch law governs the claims or, alternatively, to hear that issue in a separate module. It argued that its general conditions of sale, attached to emailed quotations and included in order confirmations, were incorporated into the contract and chose Dutch law. If Dutch law applied, it said, notice deadlines for alleged defects would be important. Bakker also argued that deciding the governing law first would avoid preparing the case on two legal bases.
The plaintiffs disputed that account. They said the emails were pre-contract correspondence and that evidence about negotiations, including meetings and telephone calls, was needed to determine whether Dutch law had been accepted. They argued that connections between the contract and Ireland could support Irish law under the Rome I Regulation. For their tort claim, they also said evidence would be needed about where damage occurred and the parties’ connections under the Rome II Regulation. In their submission, much of this evidence would also be heard at a full trial, so a separate hearing would save little time or cost.
The judge said the ordinary course was a single trial and the court had to consider whether the relevant facts were undisputed, whether a discrete legal question could be decided, and whether a separate hearing would save time and be consistent with the overall justice of the case. Although Bakker argued that the plaintiffs were conflating evidence about the contract’s terms with evidence about choice of law, the judge found that a factual dispute remained over whether any law had been chosen. The plaintiffs intended to rely on evidence of pre-contract negotiations.
He was also unconvinced that a separate hearing would save time and cost, noting that negotiation evidence might need to be heard again at trial. A decision could be appealed, potentially delaying resolution in the Commercial List, where disputes are to be resolved expeditiously. The court therefore refused the orders sought. The governing law, liability and counterclaim remain undecided.