The more modern approach is illustrated in the case of Page One Records v Britton, in which the pop group ‘The Troggs’ entered a five year management contract with the plaintiff. During the currency of the contract, the group wished to employ another manager and the plaintiff sought an injunction to restrain the threatened breach. This application was refused on the ground that this would have the effect of an order for specific performance of a contract for personal services: Page One Records Ltd v Britton [1968] 1 WLR 157, p 165

doi:10.4324/9781843141518-238

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The more modern approach is illustrated in the case of Page One Records v Britton, in which the pop group ‘The Troggs’ entered a five year management contract with the plaintiff. During the currency of the contract, the group wished to employ another manager and the plaintiff sought an injunction to restrain the threatened breach. This application was refused on the ground that this would have the effect of an order for specific performance of a contract for personal services: Page One Records Ltd v Britton [1968] 1 WLR 157, p 165

ABSTRACT

Page One Records Ltd v Britton [1968] 1 WLR 157, p 165 Stamp J: For the purposes of consideration of equitable relief, I must, I think, look at the totality of the arrangements, and the negative stipulations on which the plaintiffs rely, are, in my judgment, no more or less than stipulations designed to tie the parties together in a relationship of mutual confidence, mutual endeavour and reciprocal obligations. These considerations, in the view of Knight Bruce LJ in Johnson v Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway Co and Pickering v Bishop of Ely, on which he relied in the former case, distinguish Lumley v Wagner. I quote from the judgment of Knight Bruce LJ: ‘It is clear in the present case that, had the defendants been minded to compel the plaintiffs to perform their duties against their will, it could not have been done. Mutuality, therefore, is out of the question and, according to the rules generally supposed to exist in courts of equity, that might have been held sufficient to dispose of the matter; cases however have existed where, though the defendant could not have been compelled to do all he had undertaken to do by the contract, yet as he had contracted to abstain from doing a certain thing the court has interfered reasonably enough.