A ‘newcomer’ injunction has historically been associated with local authorities seeking relief against trespassers or protest groups, but it is now emerging as a potentially powerful remedy for addressing online unlawful activity.
What is a ‘newcomer’ injunction?
A ‘persons unknown’ injunction restrains individuals whose identities cannot be established but whose conduct can be clearly defined. A ‘newcomer’ injunction is a further development of this remedy. While in force, a ‘newcomer’ injunction will bind anyone with notice of it, even though they had no intention and had made no threat to do the prohibited act at the time of the injunction.
Leading case
In Wolverhampton City Council v London Gypsies and Travellers [2023] UKSC 47, the local authority had issued proceedings to prevent unauthorised encampments by travellers. These groups could not readily be identified in advance, and would consistently change identity, and so injunction applications were addressed to ‘persons unknown’.
The Supreme Court confirmed that the court does have the power to grant ‘newcomer’ injunctions against persons who are unknown and unidentified at the date of the grant of the injunction, and who have not yet performed, or even threatened to perform, the acts which the injunction prohibits. The court should, however, only exercise this power in circumstances where there is a compelling need to protect civil rights or to enforce public law that is not adequately met by any other available remedies.
In deciding whether to grant a ‘newcomer’ injunction and, if so, on what terms, the court will be guided by principles of justice and equity. The Supreme Court also held in Wolverhampton that ‘newcomer’ injunctions should only be made subject to procedural safeguards designed to protect newcomers’ rights, such as adherence by the applicants to a continuing duty of full and frank disclosure, as well as the taking of reasonable steps to draw the application to the attention of those likely to be affected by the injunction. This step would allow representations to be made and provide effective notice of the order to enable any person affected by it to make an application for its variation or discharge.
Commentary
The Supreme Court in Wolverhampton recognised that the courts’ injunctive power is not restricted to certain exclusive categories. Equity has a continuing ability to innovate in response to changing circumstances and needs, which applies to orders designed to protect and enhance the administration of justice.
This was demonstrated most recently in the cases of University College London Union v Persons Unknown [2025] EWHC 192 (KB) and HCRG Care Limited v Persons Unknown [2025] EWHC 794 (KB). These illustrate how the courts have begun to translate the principles confirmed by the Supreme Court in Wolverhampton into the modern online world.
In both of these cases, the claimant applied for an injunction after its confidential data was stolen following a ransomware attack. The defendant was defined in both as ‘responsible for obtaining data from the claimant’s IT systems on or about [date] and/or who has disclosed or is intending or threatening to disclose the information thereby obtained’ (emphasis added).
The expansion of the law on ‘newcomer’ injunctions was envisaged by the Supreme Court in Wolverhampton, which understood the case’s wider significance, stating that: ‘The advent of the internet, enabling wrongdoers to violate private or public rights behind a veil of anonymity, has also made the availability of injunctions against unidentified persons an increasingly significant question. If injunctions are available only against identifiable individuals, then the anonymity of wrongdoers operating online risks conferring upon them an immunity from the operation of the law.’
Notwithstanding the above decision, Nicklin J in Chirkunov and Persons Unknown [2024] EWHC 3177 (KB) reminds applicants of the need to follow the correct procedure. In that case, Nicklin J refused the claimant’s application for permission to serve the claim form out of the jurisdiction on defendant persons unknown. He said that Chirkunov should have pursued pre-action investigations and Norwich Pharmacal orders before issuing proceedings against persons unknown to establish whether he was able to provide ‘further and better evidence as to the location of the defendants’.
The rise in online unlawful conduct by unknown third parties reflects the growing ease with which individuals can exploit digital platforms while concealing their identities. Advances in technology, widespread anonymity tools, and the global reach of online networks have enabled offenders to commit acts such as harassment, data theft, fraud and the dissemination of harmful or illicit content with minimal risk of detection. As a result, victims and organisations increasingly face significant challenges in identifying perpetrators, preventing further harm, and securing effective legal remedies in a fast-moving and often jurisdictionally complex online environment.
The ‘newcomer’ injunction may, therefore, prove to be a vital tool in the armoury of litigation seeking to combat this conduct on behalf of clients, provided there is a compelling justification for the remedy and the procedural safeguards can be met, as set out in Wolverhampton. This was indeed recognised by the Supreme Court, which commented that ‘the availability of injunctions against newcomers has become an increasingly important issue in many contexts, including… breaches of confidence, breaches of intellectual property rights and a wide variety of unlawful activities related to social media’.
Siân Akerman is a director at Schillings and member of the LSLA
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