EDO Injunction Case
Encyclopedia
The EDO Injunction Case was a High Court of Justice
civil action brought by EDO MBM Technology Ltd a subsidiary of EDO Corporation
against anti-war protesters in Brighton
, that began in April 2005 and was settled by March 2006. The name of the case changed in the course of the pre-trial hearings from EDO MBM v Smash EDO to EDO MBM v Matt "The Axe" Axworthy as the first defendant an unincorporated association called Smash EDO was struck out in April 2005 due to being unrepresented.
against 14 named protesters and two protest groups Smash EDO and Bombs out Of Brighton, on grounds of harassment. The intended injunction brought under Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997
, applied to all protesters, not only those named in the court papers (who in any case strongly denied the allegations). The case created a public outcry because it was seen as a draconian, disproportionate and unjustified measure used by a US arms company to suppress the freedom to protest of UK anti-war protesters. Breach of any condition of the civil injunction carried a criminal penalty of up to five years in prison.
, opened up an argument to the defendants of 'preventing war crimes', that allowed them to put forward evidence of EDO’s complicity in war crimes, and refer to the International Criminal Court
Act. The Brighton protester's war crimes legal argument was taken seriously by the court for the first time. It had previously been dismissed by lower criminal courts in Brighton as beyond their jurisdiction.
Although a defence argument that protesters could have been justified in harassing employees of the company to stop a war crime being committed, was rejected by the high court in a preliminary issues trial of November 2005 on the grounds that such crimes could not be prevented over a long term, only in immediate actions to stop imminent and specific crimes, the court accepted that a further defense argument should be open. This was that if the protesters could show they were acting reasonably in the circumstances on the basis of an objective evidential test, then there was a defense that any harassment, if it had taken place, could be lawful.
The defendants had collated a dossier of evidence that outlined the links between EDO Corp and war crimes which included statements given by witnesses and bombing victims from Palestine. It also included reports from journalists and human rights groups on war crimes in both Iraq
and Palestine
. A High Court judge praised the detailed document as 'admirable'. The document detailed incidents of war crimes related to air strikes on civilian areas and infrastructure in both Iraq and Palestine, and argued that the attack and invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was itself illegal as a war of aggression in contravention of the UN Charter.
response in 2006 the British Government admitted that it had simply taken the word of the company on this issue and assumed it to be true even though they had not verified it.
Despite this intervention by the Attorney-General, the High Court did not accept the Government's argument that taking into account the honest belief of protesters that war crimes had taken place was wrong. The High Court found that if there was an imminent war crime that the protesters believed on reasonable grounds, was about to take place, in which EDO were complicit, then preventative direct action could lawfully be taken against EDO MBM, without waiting for the authorities of the state to intervene. The ruling effectively allowed proportionate direct action
against companies by protesters, if the threat of the crime was imminent and specific.
'It was not necessary to show that any crime was actually committed, merely that the course of conduct had been pursued to prevent the commission of crime. Further, it need not be proved that the person to whom the conduct was directed was the person who was about to commit the crime. The word 'prevent' in the provision did not, however, extend to any long term prevention of crime. '
(Independent barristers note on this point here...http://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/lawcampus/dataitem.asp?ID=59704&tid=7). On the news of this judgement EDO Corporation's share price dropped dramatically on Wall Street
in the following days.
The High Court also rejected EDO Corporation's novel claim that even though there may well have been war crimes carried out with its products, the company was protected from prosecution as a supplier to the military by the Royal Prerogative
which disallows the domestic courts from making judgements of government foreign policy. In response to this the Judge went so far as to compare the director of the EDO MBM to Bruno Tesch (Chemist)
of the Zyclon B case http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/zyklonb.htm, who was executed for assisting the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime in Germany
in the 1940s.
agreed that they would sign undertakings not to not do certain things that they had never done or had any intention of doing, on condition of discontinuance, and that defendants costs of the case were paid by EDO and EDO also pay their own substantial costs, but most importantly of all, that the injunction
against all other protesters other than those in court be lifted.
This settlement effectively ended the blanket injunction against all protests at the EDO MBM factory in Brighton. It should be also noted that the legally represented defendants had no choice but to sign the undertaking because Legal Aid had become dependent on the offer of such a document by defendants to EDO, as a result of the nervousness of one QC employed by the defendants. The QC made the recommendation of such a settlement to the Legal Services Commission
who themselves then made it a condition of continued funding. Legal funding would thus have been withdrawn from the defence case if the represented defendants had not signed the undertakings.
The legal action continued against three remaining defendants who were not dependent of Legal Aid so were able to refuse the written undertakings, and the large lump sums they were offered by EDO to sign them. EDO had hoped that these litigants in person would follow the lead of the lawyers, so that the company would not suffer the exposure of an abuse of process
hearing against them that had been a major factor in the out of court settlement for the other defendants.
If the trial had taken place the evidence of EDO's complicity in war crimes would have been brought to light, but EDO's legal team dropped the whole case before the trial started, after a damning High Court judgement in March 2006, where a judge agreed with complaints from the defendants, that EDO had failed to prepare for what had been ordered by the court to be a speedy trial. An earlier judge had decided the interim injunction created serious infringements of protester's ECHR human rights to free speech and association. EDO Corporation agreed to pay the full costs to remaining defendants and included discontinuance against all defendants who had not even come forward to fight the action which thereby prevented EDO from seeking default costs against these invisible individuals.
, were found by the judge to have abused the legal process by delaying the full trial, and thereby held onto a temporary injunction that was in place till the full trial would decide if a permanent one was necessary.
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
civil action brought by EDO MBM Technology Ltd a subsidiary of EDO Corporation
EDO Corporation
EDO Corporation was an American company, which was acquired by ITT Corporation in 2007. EDO designed and manufactured products for defense, intelligence, and commercial markets, and provided related engineering and professional services. It employed 4,000 people worldwide and had revenues of $715...
against anti-war protesters in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, that began in April 2005 and was settled by March 2006. The name of the case changed in the course of the pre-trial hearings from EDO MBM v Smash EDO to EDO MBM v Matt "The Axe" Axworthy as the first defendant an unincorporated association called Smash EDO was struck out in April 2005 due to being unrepresented.
Introduction
The anti-war protest campaign against EDO MBM began in 2004. The ongoing protests led EDO MBM and its employees, in April 2005, to seek a permanent high court injunctionInjunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
against 14 named protesters and two protest groups Smash EDO and Bombs out Of Brighton, on grounds of harassment. The intended injunction brought under Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997
Protection from Harassment Act 1997
The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is a piece of United Kingdom law which, among other things, criminalises and creates a right to protection from stalking and persistent bullying in the workplace.-Definition:...
, applied to all protesters, not only those named in the court papers (who in any case strongly denied the allegations). The case created a public outcry because it was seen as a draconian, disproportionate and unjustified measure used by a US arms company to suppress the freedom to protest of UK anti-war protesters. Breach of any condition of the civil injunction carried a criminal penalty of up to five years in prison.
Preliminary issues trial
The High Court proceedings at the Royal Courts of JusticeRoyal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is the building in London which houses the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the High Court of Justice of England and Wales...
, opened up an argument to the defendants of 'preventing war crimes', that allowed them to put forward evidence of EDO’s complicity in war crimes, and refer to the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
Act. The Brighton protester's war crimes legal argument was taken seriously by the court for the first time. It had previously been dismissed by lower criminal courts in Brighton as beyond their jurisdiction.
Although a defence argument that protesters could have been justified in harassing employees of the company to stop a war crime being committed, was rejected by the high court in a preliminary issues trial of November 2005 on the grounds that such crimes could not be prevented over a long term, only in immediate actions to stop imminent and specific crimes, the court accepted that a further defense argument should be open. This was that if the protesters could show they were acting reasonably in the circumstances on the basis of an objective evidential test, then there was a defense that any harassment, if it had taken place, could be lawful.
The defendants had collated a dossier of evidence that outlined the links between EDO Corp and war crimes which included statements given by witnesses and bombing victims from Palestine. It also included reports from journalists and human rights groups on war crimes in both Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. A High Court judge praised the detailed document as 'admirable'. The document detailed incidents of war crimes related to air strikes on civilian areas and infrastructure in both Iraq and Palestine, and argued that the attack and invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was itself illegal as a war of aggression in contravention of the UN Charter.
Attorney General's intervention in the case
The barrister David Perry was instructed by the UK Govt Attorney-General Treasury Solicitors Office to defend the legality of the war on Iraq, and apparently bolster EDO's case for the injunction. Perry described the protests and non-violent direct actions (NVDA) in Brighton as 'a mask for anarchy' and suggested that the protesters belief that EDO MBM were complicit in war crimes was imaginary and even dangerous. The written submissions of the AG to the High Court supported EDO MBM's claim that the arms company did not supply Israel with military equipment, yet in a Freedom of InformationFreedom of information
Freedom of information refers to the protection of the right to freedom of expression with regards to the Internet and information technology . Freedom of information may also concern censorship in an information technology context, i.e...
response in 2006 the British Government admitted that it had simply taken the word of the company on this issue and assumed it to be true even though they had not verified it.
Despite this intervention by the Attorney-General, the High Court did not accept the Government's argument that taking into account the honest belief of protesters that war crimes had taken place was wrong. The High Court found that if there was an imminent war crime that the protesters believed on reasonable grounds, was about to take place, in which EDO were complicit, then preventative direct action could lawfully be taken against EDO MBM, without waiting for the authorities of the state to intervene. The ruling effectively allowed proportionate direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
against companies by protesters, if the threat of the crime was imminent and specific.
'It was not necessary to show that any crime was actually committed, merely that the course of conduct had been pursued to prevent the commission of crime. Further, it need not be proved that the person to whom the conduct was directed was the person who was about to commit the crime. The word 'prevent' in the provision did not, however, extend to any long term prevention of crime. '
(Independent barristers note on this point here...http://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/lawcampus/dataitem.asp?ID=59704&tid=7). On the news of this judgement EDO Corporation's share price dropped dramatically on Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
in the following days.
The High Court also rejected EDO Corporation's novel claim that even though there may well have been war crimes carried out with its products, the company was protected from prosecution as a supplier to the military by the Royal Prerogative
Royal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the sovereign alone. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and...
which disallows the domestic courts from making judgements of government foreign policy. In response to this the Judge went so far as to compare the director of the EDO MBM to Bruno Tesch (Chemist)
Bruno Tesch (Chemist)
Bruno Emil Tesch was a German chemist and entrepreneur. He was the co-inventor of the insecticide Zyklon B with Gerhard Peters and Walter Heerdt...
of the Zyclon B case http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/zyklonb.htm, who was executed for assisting the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in the 1940s.
Settlement of the case
In February 2006 in an out of court settlement several defendants who had been represented by lawyers funded by Legal AidLegal aid
Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to counsel and the right to a fair trial.A number of...
agreed that they would sign undertakings not to not do certain things that they had never done or had any intention of doing, on condition of discontinuance, and that defendants costs of the case were paid by EDO and EDO also pay their own substantial costs, but most importantly of all, that the injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
against all other protesters other than those in court be lifted.
This settlement effectively ended the blanket injunction against all protests at the EDO MBM factory in Brighton. It should be also noted that the legally represented defendants had no choice but to sign the undertaking because Legal Aid had become dependent on the offer of such a document by defendants to EDO, as a result of the nervousness of one QC employed by the defendants. The QC made the recommendation of such a settlement to the Legal Services Commission
Legal Services Commission
The Legal Services Commission is an executive non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice that is responsible for the operational administration of legal aid in England and Wales.-Overview:...
who themselves then made it a condition of continued funding. Legal funding would thus have been withdrawn from the defence case if the represented defendants had not signed the undertakings.
The legal action continued against three remaining defendants who were not dependent of Legal Aid so were able to refuse the written undertakings, and the large lump sums they were offered by EDO to sign them. EDO had hoped that these litigants in person would follow the lead of the lawyers, so that the company would not suffer the exposure of an abuse of process
Abuse of process
Abuse of process is a cause of action in tort arising from one party making a malicious and deliberate misuse or perversion of regularly issued court process not justified by the underlying legal action.It is a common law intentional tort...
hearing against them that had been a major factor in the out of court settlement for the other defendants.
If the trial had taken place the evidence of EDO's complicity in war crimes would have been brought to light, but EDO's legal team dropped the whole case before the trial started, after a damning High Court judgement in March 2006, where a judge agreed with complaints from the defendants, that EDO had failed to prepare for what had been ordered by the court to be a speedy trial. An earlier judge had decided the interim injunction created serious infringements of protester's ECHR human rights to free speech and association. EDO Corporation agreed to pay the full costs to remaining defendants and included discontinuance against all defendants who had not even come forward to fight the action which thereby prevented EDO from seeking default costs against these invisible individuals.
Legal costs for EDO
As a result of the collapse of the year long court battle, EDO MBM suffered legal costs of between £1 million -£1.5, more than an entire year's profit for the Brighton arms company. Their legal team, from the firm Lawson Cruttenden & CoTimothy Lawson-Cruttenden
Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden is a British lawyer who specialises in court-martial law, and using the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 to contain and curtail any unlawful aspects of protest involving, amongst other matters, anti-corporate groups...
, were found by the judge to have abused the legal process by delaying the full trial, and thereby held onto a temporary injunction that was in place till the full trial would decide if a permanent one was necessary.