disobeying it and being in contempt of court as a non-party who, by knowingly acting contrary to the order, subverts the court’s purpose and thereby interferes with the administration of justice. Nevertheless, cases such as Attorney-General v Times Newspapers Ltd and Attorney General v Punch Ltd [2002] UKHL 50; [2003] 1 AC 1046 , and the daily impact of freezing injunctions on non-party financial institutions (following Z Ltd v A-Z and AA-LL [1982] QB 558), indicate that the differences in the legal analysis can be of limited practical significance. Indeed, since non-parties can be found in contempt of court for acting contrary to an injunction, it has been recognised that it can be appropriate to refer to non-parties in an injunction in order to indicate the breadth of its binding effect: see, for example, Marengo v Daily Sketch and Sunday Graphic Ltd at p 407; Attorney-General v Newspaper Publishing plc [1988] Ch 333, 387-388. the courts had generally affirmed the position that only parties to an action were bound by an injunction, a number of exceptions to that principle had been recognised. Some of the examples given also demonstrate that the court can, in appropriate circumstances, make orders which prohibit the world at large from behaving in a specified manner. It is also relevant in the present context to bear in mind that even where an injunction enjoins a named individual, the public at large are bound not knowingly to subvert it. 42. Prior to the developments discussed below, it can therefore be seen that while
(3) Injunctions in the absence of a cause of action
43. An injunction against newcomers purports to restrain the conduct of persons against whom there is no existing cause of action at the time when the order is granted: it is addressed to persons who may not at that time have formed any intention to act in the manner prohibited, let alone threatened to take or taken any steps towards doing so. That might be thought to conflict with the principle that an injunction must be founded on an existing cause of action against the person enjoined, as stated, for example, by Lord Diplock in Siskina (Owners of cargo lately laden on board) v Distos Cia Naviera SA [1979] AC 210 (“ The Siskina ”), 256. There has been a gradual but growing reaction against that reasoning (which Lord Diplock himself recognised was too narrowly stated: British Airways Board v Laker Airways Ltd [1985] AC 58, 81) over the past 40 years, culminating in the recent decision in Broad Idea, cited in para 17 above, where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council rejected such a rigid doctrine and asserted the court’s governance of its own practice. It is now well established that the grant of injunctive relief is not always conditional on the existence of a cause of action. Again, it is relevant to consider some established categories of injunction against “no cause of action defendants” (as they are sometimes described) in order to see whether newcomer injunctions fall into an existing legitimate class, or, if not, whether they display analogous features.
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