17/07/09
Broad construction of licence agreement upheld by Court of Appeal keeps royalties flowing
Recently, the Court of Appeal announced that Oxonica failed in a challenge to overrule a High Court decision which related to the payment of royalties to Neuftec for the exploitation of a ‘green diesel’ .
Previously , a High Court judge had said that the licence agreement governing the royalty stream had been drafted in a somewhat mechanical manner using bits of legal “boilerplate” bolted together so that the words shaped the concept rather than the other way round.
What ensued was an ambiguous contract that left the judge with the very difficult task of trying to unravel the intention of the parties from what was actually agreed.
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