Tullett Prebon Group Ltd v El-Hajjali, Court of Appeal - Queen's Bench Division, July 31, 2008, [2008] IRLR 760,[2008] EWHC 1924 (QB)
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Tullett Prebon Group Ltd v El-Hajjali, Court of Appeal - Queen's Bench Division, July 31, 2008, [2008] IRLR 760,[2008] EWHC 1924 (QB)
Neutral Citation Number: [2008] EWHC 1924 (QB)Case No: HQ007X00670IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICEQUEEN'S BENCH DIVISIONRoyal Courts of JusticeStrand, London, WC2A 2LLDate: 31/07/2008Before :MR JUSTICE NELSON- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Between :- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Daniel Oudkerk (instructed by Rosenblatt) for the Claimants Chris Quinn (instructed by Archon) for the Defendant Hearing dates: 14th - 17th January 2008- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -JudgmentMr Justice Nelson : 1. This is a claim for damages for breach of an employment contract made in writing on 24 September 2006 between the Claimants and their prospective employee, the Defendant. The Claimants and Defendant remained prospective employer and employee as although an employment contract was signed by them, the Defendant changed his mind after signing the contract and before joining the Claimants, deciding to remain with his original employers, Link Asset and Securities Company Limited. The claim is for liquidated damages under clause 19.4 of the contract or alternatively, for damages to be assessed. On 25 June 2007 it was ordered that the Court should first try two issues, whether clause 19.4 of the contract was a lawful liquidated damages clause or a penalty clause, and whether, if causation was relied upon by the Defendant, which it is, he is not in any event liable for his breach of the contract because no loss has been caused by that breach.2. In determining these issues I have had the benefit of opening and closing written submissions by both parties together with oral submissions and evidence from Mr Marcus Bolton and Mr Simon Drake directors of the prospective employer Claimants, Peter Marshall the Claimants' former in house legal adviser, Mr Philip Haberman the Claimants' accountancy expert, Mr Ghaleb El-Hajjali the prospective employee Defendant, and Mr Charles Davies the group chief executive of the Link Asset and Securities Company Limited, the Defendant's then and present employers. The Facts.3. The Claimants are a leading inter-dealer brokers with a wide range of activities including global foreign exchange, commodities, interest rates and equity markets. The Defendant is a Senior Derivatives Broker and manager of Variance Swaps broking at Link. The Claimants and Link were competitors in some areas and there had in the past been some disputes between them over employees.4. Both the Claimants and Link deal in sophisticated financial instruments. Variance Swaps are part a suite of specialist financial products known as `Exotic Equity Options'. The parties found some difficulty in giving a precise definition of the more specialist financial instruments used by them but fortunately this creates no disadvantage as it is sufficient for the purposes of this litigation to understand their essential nature rather than their finer detail. Standard equity options, involving call options or put options in which the investor is seeking to profit from his assessment of the likely movement of the market in a particular stock towards or beyond the strike price at which he has purchased his option, are called Vanilla Options. Exotic Equity Options are derivative products other than Vanilla Options. They are considerably more complex than Vanilla Options. Variance Swaps are a subset of Exotic Equity Options and involve trading on...See the full content of this document
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