The High Court has ruled bread company McCambridge is entitled to recover from rival company Brennans just 40 per cent of the costs of the action where the court found Brennans was selling a wholewheat bread product in packaging “confusingly similar” to that of McCambridge.
Mr Justice Michael Peart ruled today that McCambridge Ltd should bear some of its own legal costs of its action because it had lost certain aspects of its claim against Brennans. A stay applies on that order pending applications by Brennans to the Supreme Court related to a planned appeal.
Last week, the judge granted McCambridge an injunction preventing Brennans selling its wholewheat bread in the disputed packaging but he agreed to stay that injunction to Saturday to facilitate the bringing of a Supreme Court appeal by Brennans.
The issue of any extension of that stay was a matter for the Supreme Court, the judge said.
Mr Justice Peart said McCambridge was only entitled to recover 40 per cent of its costs from Brennans as the court had rejected its claim Brennans had deliberately imitated the McCambridge packaging. That particular claim had added significantly to the length of the case and the volume of documents required, he said.
He believed there was a public interest to be served by the court engaging in the process of apportioning percentages in relation to costs orders because that would encourage parties not to raise issues which had “a less than reasonable prospect of success”.
Other unsuccessful claims by McCambridge of breaches of the Consumer Protection Act and copyright had not added significantly to the length of the case, he said.
McCambridge which sells its Irish stone-ground wholewheat bread as a rectangular 500 gram ready-sliced loaf in resealable packaging, with a dark green panel across the front, brought the proceedings earlier this year after Brennans began packaging its own wholewheat bread in similar resealable packaging, also with a green panel across the front.