*302 Greig and Others v Insole and Others 1977 G. No. 22461977 J ...

[1978] 1 W.L.R. 302 Page 36
[1978] 1 W.L.R. 302 [1978] 3 All E.R. 449 (1978) 122 S.J. 162 [1978] 1 W.L.R. 302 [1978] 3 All E.R. 449 (1978)
122 S.J. 162
(Cite as: [1978] 1 W.L.R. 302)
justification for the acts of the defendant federation
“as against the plaintiffs” and it was accordingly liable
to them.
In my judgment, therefore, it is clear that the ICC
has to justify as against World Series Cricket the
actions which it took in regard to players with a
view to inducing them to withdraw from their contracts
with that company. For this reason, I do not
regard a number of matters which are pleaded by
the defendants as constituting justification, as affording
any valid basis for the plea. They plead, for
example, a large number of alleged facts relating to
the terms of the contracts and the circumstances in
which they were entered (such as secrecy and the
failure to provide copies to the players). If the defendants
had shown that all the contracts in question
were void or voidable, I would have regarded
this as highly material, not because this would have
provided a defence of justification as such, but because
I am prepared to assume that the tort is not
committed if the alleged contract interfered with is
shown to be voidable or void. The defendants,
however, in my judgment have not proved either of
these things. Accordingly, I think that the terms of
the contracts and the circumstances in which they
were concluded do not found a defence of justification.
In his closing speech on behalf of the defendants,
Mr. Kempster emphasised the impersonal
and disinterested motives of the ICC in doing what
it did and referred me to the decision of Gale J. in
the Ontario High Court, Posluns v.
Toronto Stock Exchange and Gardiner (1965) 46
D.L.R. 210 , see particularly at p. 270. In
my judgment, however, motives of this nature do
not, as such, give rise to a defence of justification
either generally under English law or on the particular
facts of this case.
In the context of English county cricketers, Mr.
Kempster mentioned that in accordance with the
discipline sub-committee regulations of the rules of
the TCCB (Appendix J, paragraph A), every registered
county cricketer, before the beginning of
each cricket season, is required to sign an undertaking
with the TCCB to abide by its rules. All county
players who have contracted with World Series
Cricket would have signed such an undertaking before
the start of the 1977 season. It was submitted
that, by so signing, they had sufficiently agreed to
submit to any proper exercise of their functions by
the governing bodies of cricket, namely, the ICC
and the TCCB, including changes of their qualification
rules. This submission, however, even if correct,
would, in my judgment, at most confer certain
rights on the ICC and the TCCB as against the
players concerned. It could afford no justification to
either of those bodies for attempting to interfere
with contracts concluded between players and third
parties.
Much the same comment would, in my
judgment, apply to the defendants' submission that
the ICC or the TCCB was entitled to interfere with
World Series Cricket contracts on the grounds that
some of the players concerned, by entering into
such contracts or alternatively by *342
playing in World Series matches, have
been or will be in breach of contractual obligations
previously entered into by them either with their
county clubs (in the case of some English county
cricketers) or with their national governing bodies
for cricket (in the case of some other players). This
could be a point which the county clubs or governing
bodies would be entitled to take. In my judgment,
however, it does not avail the ICC or the
TCCB in the present proceedings, as against World
Series Cricket.
I accept Mr. Kempster's submission that the plea of
justification nowadays is a flexible one and should
not be regarded as confined to narrow straitjackets.
In general terms, however the weakness of the
ICC's plea of justification as against World Series
Cricket is, in my judgment, illustrated by the fact
that, according to the evidence, neither it nor its
legal advisers made any attempt to obtain from Mr.
Packer or World Series Cricket copies of the relevant
contracts, either at the meeting of June 23,
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