Pipeline Cleaning Solutions Limited against Coretrax Technology Limited
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judge | Lord Sandison |
| Judgment Date | 23 December 2025 |
| Neutral Citation | [2025] CSOH 122 |
| Docket Number | A352/23 |
| Published date | 23 December 2025 |
| Court | Court of Session |
| Date | 23 December 2025 |
OUTER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION
[2025] CSOH 122
A352/23
OPINION OF LORD SANDISON
In the cause
PIPELINE CLEANING SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Pursuer
against
CORETRAX TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
Defender
Pursuer: Tariq KC; Harper MacLeod LLP
Defender: Manson; Clyde & Co (Scotland) LLP
23 December 2025
Introduction
[1] In this commercial action the pursuer seeks £10 million in damages from the
defender by way of reparation for breaches of contract and patent infringement. The
defender maintains that the contractual aspects of the case stated against it have prescribed,
that the pursuer’s claim is barred by a contractual “hold harmless” clause, and that its case
in relation to the loss said to have been sustained is in any event irrelevant or lacking in
essential specication. It seeks decree of absolvitor in respect of the supposedly prescribed
elements, and decree of dismissal without enquiry in respect of the remaining elements. The
maer came before the court for a discussion of its preliminary pleas.
2
Background
[2] The pursuer is a Scoish company which holds an EU patent with a priority date of
20 December 2008, for a uid product used for cleaning pipes and tanks in the oil industry
context, named “Uptake”. In October 2016 it entered into a “Bilateral Condentiality
Agreement” with the defender, another Scoish company. The form of contract which they
used contained a clause where the purpose of the agreement was intended to be stated, but
the parties did not ll that clause in. The pursuer maintains that the agreement was in
relation to the supply of Uptake to the defender in terms of a then-proposed Purchasing
Agreement.
[3] The parties then entered into that agreement, in terms of which the pursuer agreed
that the defender would have the exclusive right to purchase, market and re-sell Uptake
from it within the geographical areas of the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Dubai for use in
post-drilling and pre-completion wellbore cleanup, swarf recovery and downhole slops
handling, for an initial 3-year period from 1 January 2017, to be extended for a further three-
year period unless previously terminated, and thereafter by mutual agreement.
[4] The pursuer supplied Uptake to the defender for a period, and provided it with
technical information about its processing and use, but claims that in the course of 2018 the
defender began to supply to its customers a product designed to perform the same functions
as Uptake, called SwarfSweep. The pursuer maintains that SwarfSweep’s formulation
infringed its patent in Uptake, and was developed by the defender by way of the use of
condential information disclosed to it and falling within the ambit of the Condentiality
and Purchasing Agreements. The defender denies these claims. It purported to terminate
the Purchasing Agreement on 5 December 2018. The pursuer maintains that it was then
3
supplying its customers with a product called Uptake, but which was in fact probably
SwarfSweep.
[5] The pursuer claims that as a consequence of the defender’s breaches of the
Purchasing Agreement and Condentiality Agreement, and its infringement of the patent, it
has suered loss and damage in the form of lost prot on anticipated sales of Uptake. It
maintains that, once the ecacy of Uptake had been established in the market, it would have
made substantial and protable sales and that the defender’s actions caused a loss of market
condence in the product and delayed it in doing so.
Relevant statutory provisions
[6] The Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 as amended inter alia provided
at the times material to this action as follows:
“6.— Extinction of obligations by prescriptive periods of ve years.
(1) If, after the appropriate date, an obligation to which this section applies has
subsisted for a continuous period of ve years—
(a) without any relevant claim having been made in relation to the
obligation, and
(b) without the subsistence of the obligation having been relevantly
acknowledged, then as from the expiration of that period the obligation
shall be extinguished:
…
9.— Denition of ‘relevant claim’ for purposes of sections 6, 7 and 8.
(1) In sections 6, 7 and 8A of this Act the expression ‘relevant claim’, in relation to
an obligation, means a claim made by or on behalf of the creditor for
implement or part-implement of the obligation, being a claim made—
(a) in appropriate proceedings …”
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting