Arla Foods Ltd v Persons Unknown, 2024 WL 03597159 (2024)
Court Chancery Division
Judgment Date 26 July 2024
Claim No.BL-2022-001396 High Court of Justice Business and Property Courts of England and Wales Business List (ChD) [2024] EWHC 1952 (Ch), 2024 WL 03597159 Before: Jonathan Hilliard KC sitting as Deputy Judge of the High Court 26 July 2024
Hearing date: 23 July 2024
Representation
Caroline Bolton and Natalie Pratt (instructed by Walker Morris LLP ) for the Claimants. The Defendants did not appear and were not represented.
Approved Judgment Jonathan Hilliard KC sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court:
Introduction 1. The First Claimant is the largest farmer-owned dairy co-operative in Europe, owned by approximately 9600 dairy farmers, 2,400 of whom are in the UK. It provides 40% of the milk supplied to supermarkets in the UK and is the largest supplier of milk in the UK. While it operates from several sites in the UK producing a range of dairy products, the present proceedings concern four of those sites that produce and distribute milk (the "Sites" ). The four sites are at Aylesbury Dairy, Samian Way, Aston Clinton Aylesbury HP22 5EZ (the "Aylesbury Site" ), Oakthorpe Dairy, Chequers Way, Palmers Green, London N13 6BU (the "Oakthorpe Site" ), Hatfield Distribution Warehouse, 4000 Mosquito Way, Hatfield Business Park, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9US (the "Hatfield Site" ) and finally Pontefract Road, Leeds LS10 1AX and the National Distribution Centre at Leodis Way, Leeds LS10 1NN (the "Leeds Site" ).
2. The Second Claimant, a wholly owned subsidiary of the First Claimant, holds the leasehold title to the Hatfield Site.
3. By the present Part 8 proceedings, the Claimants seek injunctions against a number of identified defendants and persons unknown to restrain future action at the Sites by animal rights activists associated with the protest group initially known as Animal Rebellion, which rebranded last year to Animal Rising (the "Claim" ).
© 2025 Thomson Reuters. 4. The Claimants sought and obtained from Bacon J on 31 August 2022 urgent and without notice relief to restrain apprehended unlawful acts of protest. The interim relief was continued by Fancourt J at a return date on 4 October 2022, and the Judge permitted the Claimants to add 31 named defendants. By way of a 25 October 2022 order, three further defendants were added, one of whom was identified only by a photograph rather than by name. Following the Claimants' 12 187 3
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