that the claim form could be obtained from the claimant’s offices. Injunctions were obtained, invariably on without notice applications where the defendants were unnamed, and were similarly displayed. They contained a variety of provisions concerning review or liberty to apply. Some injunctions were of fixed duration. Others had no specified end date. Some were expressed to be interim injunctions. Others were agreed or held by Nicklin J to be final injunctions. Some had a power of arrest attached, meaning that any person who acted contrary to the injunction was liable to immediate arrest. 9. As we have explained, the injunctions were addressed in some cases simply to “persons unknown”, and in other cases to persons described by reference to the activities from which they were required to refrain: for example, “persons unknown occupying the sites listed in this order”. The respondents were among the local authorities who obtained such injunctions. 10. From around mid-2020, applications were made in some of the claims to extend or vary injunctions of fixed duration which were nearing their end. After a hearing in one such case, Nicklin J decided, with the concurrence of the President of the Queen’s Bench Division and the Judge in Charge of the Queen’s Bench Civil List, that there was a need for review of all such injunctions. After case management, in the course of which many of the claims were discontinued, there remained 16 local authorities (or groups of local authorities) actively pursuing claims. The appellants were given permission to intervene. A hearing was then fixed at which four issues of principle were to be determined. Following the hearing, Nicklin J determined those issues: Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council v Persons Unknown [2021] EWHC 1201 (QB); [2022] JPL 43. 11. Putting the matter broadly at this stage, Nicklin J concluded, in the light particularly of the decision of the Court of Appeal in Canada Goose UK Retail Ltd v Persons Unknown [2020] EWCA Civ 303; [2020] 1 WLR 2802 (“ Canada Goose ”), that interim injunctions could be granted against persons unknown, but that final injunctions could be granted only against parties who had been identified and had had an opportunity to contest the final order sought. If the relevant local authority could identify anyone in the category of “persons unknown” at the time the final order was granted, then the final injunction bound each person who could be identified. If not, then the final injunction granted against “persons unknown” bound no-one. In the light of that conclusion, Nicklin J discharged the final injunctions either in full or in so far as they were addressed to any person falling within the definition of “persons unknown” who was not a party to the proceedings at the date when the final order was granted. 12. Twelve of the claimants appealed to the Court of Appeal. In its decision, set out in a judgment given by Sir Geoffrey Vos MR with which Lewison and Elisabeth Laing LJJ agreed, the court held that “the judge was wrong to hold that the court cannot grant final injunctions that prevent persons, who are unknown and unidentified at the date of
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