Speed-reading the judgement, with a personal interest as somebody who has a little training in contract law, and also has written several aviation books that I'd rather not see copied without my permission - I can only conclude "
what a mess, I really hope that I never end up in that sort of position myself".
As for the people posting above, who I'm sure under normal circumstances are exactly the sort of people I'd be very happy to do business with, the judgement says:-
Based on his demeanour and some of what emerged in evidence, Mr Whittingham was prepared to go to considerable lengths to further his interests and those of BGS. He also gave me the impression of having thought through his position to the point of taking notable care to give away as little as possible in his answers to cross-examination.
So far as concerns Mr Cownie, I consider that there is substance in Mr Hicks's submissions to the effect that (1) Mr Cownie's strong feelings about this dispute have at the very least clouded his recollection of events, and (2) it was a less than satisfactory feature of his evidence that in a number of instances it only emerged in cross-examination.
The Blog post copied by Greg2041 (hopefully with permission of the copyright holder
) summed it up brilliantly I think...
This feels to this blogger like the sort of set of facts that, in an ideal world, would be dealt with best by mediation: as it is, neither comes out of the litigation with a clean bill of health, and the six days of hearing suggest that this was not a ruling that came cheaply.
An object lesson to all of us I think if we ever end up in this sort of position - swallow pride, either deal with it "man-to-man", or use a trustworthy arbitrator.