The High Court has granted Ryanair leave to enter judgment against Polish company Flightbox after it failed to enter an appearance in a dispute over the alleged scraping of flight and pricing data from the airline’s website.
In an approved ex tempore judgment delivered on 6 November 2023, Mr Justice Mícheál P. O’Higgins held that the Irish court had jurisdiction under the EU’s Brussels I Recast Regulation. He found that Ryanair’s website terms of use, including an exclusive Irish jurisdiction clause, bound Flightbox because obtaining the data required agreement to those terms.
The judge accepted Ryanair’s unchallenged affidavit evidence that Flightbox accessed the website using automated software and scraped price, flight and timetable data, contrary to the terms. Flightbox did not appear, file a defence or provide replying affidavits. The judgment records that the court considered the company’s position as set out in correspondence from its Polish lawyers and a later email sent on its behalf.
Flightbox had argued that the Irish case should be stayed because it had brought earlier proceedings against Ryanair in Poland. The judge concluded that the Irish proceedings and the Polish case involved the same parties and substantially the same issue: whether the parties were bound by Ryanair’s terms. He held that Article 31(2) gave the Irish court priority seisin because the terms conferred exclusive jurisdiction on the Irish courts. He did not decide Ryanair’s alternative argument that translation and service issues meant the Irish proceedings had been lodged first for the purposes of the regulation.
The application was for judgment in default of appearance, rather than a contested trial. The judge said Ryanair had a strong substantive case and had met the procedural requirements for default judgment. He granted leave to enter judgment on the statement of claim and said he was also prepared to grant the specific declaratory and injunctive relief sought. The precise wording of those orders, and costs, were left for further consideration. Damages were to be assessed on a date to be fixed later.
The ruling records that Flightbox could apply to have the default judgment set aside if it met the applicable procedural conditions. Ryanair’s separate proceedings against online travel agent Vola and technology company Ypsilon were described as ongoing; they were not determined by this application.