Lilley v Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc & Anor
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE BIRSS
Areas of Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- Civil Procedure
2014
CHANCERY DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Mr. Victor Lilley, an author, sued various publishers including Euromoney, CIMA, Aspermont, and DMG Events Limited, for alleged copyright infringement, claiming over £1.6 billion in damages. His applications for recusal of Justice Birss, for adjourning hearings, and for compelling additional information were dismissed as wholly without merit. The court deemed his damages claims unrealistic, imposing an unless order for amended particulars of claim, and made extended civil restraint orders against Mr. Lilley due to his persistent, baseless litigation.
Judgment
Mr Justice Birss:
The claimant in these three cases, Mr Victor Lilley, is an author. In the 1990s he wrote articles for various publications. The publishers of those magazines paid him a fee between about £150 and £450 for each article. The articles were published in the relevant publications. After that copies of Mr Lilley’s articles appeared elsewhere. They appeared on the internet. Mr Lilley contends that the publication of his articles on the internet was unlicensed and therefore was an infringement of his copyright. He contends that the defendants are liable for that infringement and he claims damages.
In the three cases with which this judgment is concerned the defendant is the publisher of the relevant magazine. I will refer to the three sets of defendants respectively as Euromoney, CIMA and Aspermont. The number of articles in issue in the three cases varies from three articles each (Euromoney and Aspermont) to seven or perhaps thirteen articles (CIMA). In all three cases Mr Lilley’s Particulars of Claim are very long documents. They include spreadsheets in which he articulates his claim for damages. The quantum of damages claimed in the three cases are about £27 million (Aspermont), about £117 million (Euromoney) and about £450 million (CIMA).
There is also a further fourth action which is in substance the same as the other three. In that case Mr Lilley is suing DMG Events Limited for over £900 million in respect of thirty seven articles. That action began in the High Court but, contrary to Mr Lilley’s wishes, was transferred to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court. It came before HHJ Hacon on 12 th March 2014. HHJ Hacon held that the only tenable basis on which a damages calculation could be carried out was a “group 3” calculation (see General Tire v Firestone [1975] 1 WLR 819 ) and that Mr Lilley had agreed before him that assessed on that group 3 basis the sum due would be £83. On that footing HHJ Hacon struck the action out on the basis of Jameel (Yousef) v Dow Jones & Co Inc [2005] EWCA Civ 75 , that it was “not worth the candle”. Mr Lilley has applied to set aside that judgment. The application includes allegations of treason, fraud and perverting the course of justice.
It is notable that the damages calculation in each case is advanced on the same basis. For each original article written by Mr Lilley the damages calculation takes the original price of the article and multiplies it up in various ways.
The first step