The High Court refused Pablo Star Media Limited managing director Haydn Price permission to represent the company in court, and later struck out the company’s application for leave to seek judicial review because it did not attend through its lawyers.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys gave written reasons on 21 December 2015 for his decision, made on 19 October, that Mr Price had no right of audience for the company. He said that allowing Mr Price to address the court on whether he had such a right did not amount to recognising a right to argue the case on its merits.
The dispute began with the company’s allegation that E.W. Scripps Company copied one of its photographs and put it on a website on 20 April 2014. Pablo Star Media claimed €3,000 in damages in the District Court. The judgment records that the damages remained unquantified unless and until determined by a court.
A District Court judge had allowed Mr Price to represent the company, but the Circuit Court overturned that decision on 7 May 2015. Pablo Star Media then sought judicial review of the Circuit Court ruling. The High Court judgment addressed whether Mr Price could represent the company in those proceedings and the subsequent fate of the leave application; it did not decide the underlying copyright claim.
Mr Price argued that requiring a company to use a lawyer made low-value intellectual property claims disproportionately costly, contrary to the EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive. He said the company faced legal costs of €5,000 to €8,000 for a claim it valued at €3,000. Those figures were his submissions, not findings about the likely costs or value of the claim.
Mr Justice Humphreys held that Supreme Court authority generally bars a company director or employee from representing the company, subject only to narrow discretion in exceptional circumstances. He rejected the argument that the directive or the claim’s intellectual property character created such an exception. He also said the directive did not establish a sufficiently clear and unconditional right to direct effect that would require him to depart from binding Supreme Court decisions.
After refusing Mr Price permission to appear, the judge adjourned the matter so the company could obtain legal representation. Solicitor and counsel appeared, but the papers were incomplete and the case was adjourned again. When the lawyers did not appear at the next stage, Mr Price told the court the company considered representation too expensive. The judge struck out the application for leave for non-attendance. The judgment records no ruling on whether the photograph had been copied unlawfully or on damages.