Subscribe to this blog's feedHere is an intriguing court case north of the Border has been pitting oil giant Talisman Energy against a renewables minnow in the shape of Pine Energy Consultants.
The latter went to the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh over the former’s experimental offshore wind turbine scheme at the company’s Beatrice Field in the Moray Forth. Attentive readers of this magazine will know that the project has backing from the government and financial involvement from Scottish and Southern Energy.
The scheme is investigating the viability of an offshore wind facility in deep water, which makes use of existing infrastructure established by earlier oil and gas exploration and production.
Pine has gone to court claiming that it was the source of the original idea for the scheme (proposed back in 2000), that it had worked on the idea with Talisman but had been ditched back in 2003. Pine is suing for royalties worth £25 million on the grounds that the scheme would never have got off the drawing board without its early input.
Talisman is contesting that notion. It is also rejecting claims that confidential information was disclosed to Scottish ministers and others. Scottish judge Lord Glennie has dismissed a lot of Pine Energy’s case, that it had a partnership with Talisman and that the oil company breached its confidence.
“It seems to me that the claim for breach of confidence as pled, including as it does these averments which go well beyond the case on which the pursuers intend to proceed, is so confusing, so unclear and lacking in specification as to be irrelevant,” our man in a wig ruled.
“I have held that the pursuers do in principle have a relevant case, but only in respect of the defenders’ alleged misuse of their concept presented at the meeting in August 2000.
“The partnership claim is also irrelevant in my view, though in this case not because it pleads too much but because it pleads too little. Not that there is necessarily anything further which could be pled. It is clear that the parties were at one stage discussing partnership. It may be that they agreed that they would go into partnership, though it is disputed that they reached the stage of a binding agreement to this effect. It may be, as they aver, that there was a common understanding that they would proceed as partners with the defenders. But none of this amounts to a partnership.”
Disconnector loves the use of the past participle of “to plead”. He would like to have pled too.
The great man (Disconnector, not Lord Glennie) hopes to bring you the final result as and when it surfaces, though he has to say things are not looking promising for Pine.
