News
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Privy Council reviews the law of IN REM and IM PERSONAM judgments
Date of the Judgment: 20 November 2006
In the Petition of Appeal of Pattni v. Ali and Dinky International SA re World Duty Free Company Limited (in Receivership), Lords Bingham, Walker, Carswell, Manse and Baroness Hale determined an Appeal from the Staff of Government Division (Appeal Court) of the Isle of Man and dealt with some interesting issues of private international law and the distinction between in rem and in personam Judgments.
With the Petitioners having failed both at first instance and on Appeal, their Lordships focusing on the essence of what the relevant Judgment (being a Judgment of the Kenyan Court) looked to achieve.
In analysing the substance of the underlying Judgment the Lord Manse focused on the potential for a foreign Judgment which on a jurisdictional basis could not be capable of being a Judgment in rem but which may still act (essentially as a developing form of an argument on estoppel) as a binding Judgment between the competing parties to the original Judgment as acting as a Judgement in personam as against them.
In brief summary, matters arose from a dispute between the parties to share sale documentation in Kenya, which originally was litigated before the Kenyan High Court but which related to the ownership in shares in World Duty Free Company Limited (in Receivership), a Manx company, which operated Duty Free shops in International airports in Kenya.
The litigation in the Isle of Man giving rise to the Appeal centred on whether or not the Kenyan Judgment was a Judgment in rem and/or in personam and if it were to be a Judgment in rem whether the Kenyan Court had jurisdictional competence to make Orders in relation to shares in a non Kenyan company.
