In a recent decision, the High Court took a dim view of the
claimant’s application to widen the embargo on a draft
judgment awarding it substantial damages, where the
claimant’s aim was to seek to recover sums from a third party
which was likely to be embarrassed by certain findings in the
judgment: New York Laser Clinic
Ltd v Naturastudios Ltd [2019] EWHC 2892 (QB).
The issue arose in the context of a claim for breach of
collateral warranty relating to the supply of laser hair removal
devices to be used in the claimant’s business (see our blog
post on the substantive aspects of the decision here). The claimant
alleged that there were serious defects in the devices supplied by
the defendant, which were manufactured by a third party called
Formatk. The claimant asked the court to vary the usual embargo so
that it could provide a copy of the draft judgment to Formatk, in
the hope that Formatk might wish to provide money to settle the
proceedings and avoid the
