NO NEED FOR TEMPORARY NAME CHANGE, RULES JUDGE

This came today from LexisNexis' Butterworths All England Direct subscription-only service: European Healthcare (East) Ltd v Gosai and another, a Chancery Division decision of Judge Rich QC, sitting as a deputy judge. It hasn't yet reached BAILII, which is the fate of most small-time cases that have an interim flavour to them.

Gosai worked for a company (the second defendant company), also providing certain facilities for it. That company's owner later sold the sole share in it to European Healthcare, which changed the comnpany's name to its own. Gosai alleged that, before the transfer, he made an arrangement with the owner of the second defendant, by which the sole share and 20% of that company's profits would be transferred to him in return for the work he had done for the company. Gosai later claimed he had a claim against the company.

European Healthcare sued Gosai and the company, seeking an interim injunction to stop them from trading in the name of the second defendant and to order each of them to change that company's name. European Healthcare also sought delivery up of certain documents which, it said, belonged to the second defendant and had been in Gosai's possession while he was working for that company. Gosai said he had a lien over the requested documents under to his arrangement with the company's former owner.

Judge Rich QC ordered delivery up.

* Gosai said he did not object to the making of such an interim injunction against him pending trial. Accordingly, the court would grant the injunction, with liberty to Gosai to apply to vary or discharge the order.

* Under the circumstances, it was unnecessary to require Gosai's former company to change its name. It was self-evident that the documents requested by European Healthcare belonged to it and were reasonably necessary for the efficacious carrying on of its business. Even if Gosai had a quantifiable claim against the company's previous owner, such a claim only gave him a right against that person but did not extend to a right against European Healthcare. In any event, since under the alleged agreement Gosai's rights did not arise until after May 2005, there was no present claim against which such a lien could exist.

* Delivery up would be ordered within 14 days with liberty to the defendants to apply to vary or discharge the order.

The IPKat loves these little intrigues, but wonders what the name of the mysterious company is and what it would have to be changed to. It's just so stuffy when law reporting convention demands the use of boring descriptors like "claimant" and "defendant", when the parties' names are usually easier to remember.

Company name changes here
A naming blog here