CDV Software Entertainment AG v Gamecock Media Europe Ltd & ors

Robert Howe QC and Mark Vinall acted for the claimant, a German software distributor, in this complex dispute with a publisher arising out of a Publishing and Distribution Agreement for seven video games which were then in the course of development, including Velvet Assassin and Mushroom Men. The agreement gave the claimant a right to terminate individual products if they were delivered late, and the claimant had exercised this right in relation to four of the titles. The interpretation of various aspects of the contractual timetable was in dispute.

Mrs Justice Gloster, sitting in the Chancery Division, held that the claimant had been entitled to terminate in respect of three of the four titles, and that its wrongful purported termination of a fourth was not a repudiation of the whole agreement (applying Woodar v Wimpey). The defendant was therefore ordered to repay advances totalling $3.7 million.