Fracking, protests and injunctions: an essential update
11th April 2022
This article was written for, and published in, the Property Law Journal, April 2022, which can be read here.
Helpfully for businesses, the Barking and Dagenham case clarifies that interim injunctions obtained against persons unknown or unidentified persons can now be continued at trial on a final basis.
Gwendoline Davies and Nick McQueen from the Walker Morris Litigation & Dispute Resolution Team, offer an essential update for businesses concerned about protests to take action against unidentified protestors.
How Walker Morris can help
The majority of the work required to prepare for a civil injunction against protestors can be done in advance. This includes the relevant Court documents which explain the nature of the business and the ownership of the land (which can often be complicated on large sites, industrial estates and distribution centres).
Protests regularly occur outside of usual office hours. The worst time to start to try to prepare is when the protestors are already on site and the business is in crisis mode trying to keep operations running and manage the impact.
We can work with you to proactively prepare a ‘Protestor Pack’, which contains all the documents necessary to seek an urgent court injunction. In the event of an incident, the documents can simply be completed with the specific detail. This avoids delays in obtaining the information during the incident and means action can be taken swiftly to minimise the impact of the protestors.
We offer our ‘Protestor Packs’ for a fixed fee for the first site, and reduced fees for each further site (depending on the number of sites). For details of our fees please contact us.
Gwendoline's contact details
