London 04/06/2014 - The London Metal Exchange will appeal on July 29 and 30 against the judgement made in March against it in a judicial review brought by UC Rusal of Russia.
"We welcome the opportunity to challenge the judge in the first instance," an exchange representative told FastMarkets.
Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer, challenged the LME in London's High Court, alleging that the exchange's proposed new warehouse rules could create "severe hardship" for producers by artificially depressing the 'all in' price of aluminium.
At the time, the presiding judge, Justice Phillips, found the LME's original consultation and subsequent proposed rule warehousing changes to be "unlawful" and "unfair", forcing the exchange to suspend the implementation of a new linked load-in/load-out warehousing policy scheduled for April 1.
Still, the LME was granted leave to appeal on May 15 when, Lord Justice Jackson said in a court order: "The judge's analysis, if correct, places onerous obligations on any public body conducting a consultation on complex issues in a politically sensitive area."
"The public body must carry out its own preliminary assessment and winnowing in order to provide proper focus for the consultation exercise, as LME did in this case. In my view the grounds of appeal have a real prospect of success," he added.
The exchange has always insisted that Rusal's complaint was without merit.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)