Clients in commercial cases want to know the answer to two simple questions: do they have a claim and what is it worth? As lawyers, the majority of our energies seem to be spent on the first question. Almost as an afterthought we answer the second question by saying that, if successful, the claimant will recover whatever loss they have suffered. There might be difficult questions of calculation of loss but this can be left safely to accountants to sort out once liability is established.
The recent case of World Wide Fund for Nature v World Wrestling Federation [2007] not only illustrates the dangers of such an approach but also shows the opportunities for claimants to recover more than their strict financial loss.
