FINESSE GROUP LTD V BRYSON PRODUCTS (A FIRM) AND ANOTHER

[2013] EWHC 3273 (TCC), Queen's Bench Division, Technology and Construction Court, Mr Justice Akenhead, 29 October 2013

Tort - Claimant purchasing adhesive produced by second defendant from first defendant - Whether claimant had a cause of action in tort against the producer - Donoghue v Stevenson - Application for summary judgment - No realistic prospects of success

This was the first case management conference in the TCC in this case at which several applications were decided, including the issue of whether Finesse had a cause of action in tort against the second defendant. The background was that between January and May 2012 Finesse (the claimant) had purchased from Bryson (the first defendant) pressure canisters of liquid adhesive, marketed under the name "Swiftbond", which Finesse used to create display panels for exhibition stands. During the erection of a stand for a conference, some of the coloured panels had begun to delaminate from the structure of the stand and were displaying a bubbling or bulging effect. Delamination had occurred or was beginning to the component parts in a number of other similar stands. Finesses case was that it had incurred costs and losses involved in putting right these problems which, apart from costs incurred in rectifying the alleged defects, included loss of business goodwill. Finesse asserted that the Swiftbond adhesive which it used for these various stands emanated from the second defendant, Bostik, through AFT, a third party who had not yet been joined to the proceedings.