Boeing, Norwegian likely to clash in US courts – lawyer

As its examinership process presses forward in Dublin, Norwegian (DY, Oslo Gardermoen) has told Ireland’s High Court that it expects its clash with Boeing (BOE, Chicago O’Hare) over the cancellation of orders for 97 aircraft to be decided in the courts of the United States, not as part of the Irish restructuring. A lawyer representing Norwegian, Declan Murphy, revealed on March 5 that the airline was applying to the Irish court to issue repudiation orders for three aircraft sales contracts with the manufacturer, Reuters reported. But he assured that he was not asking the High Court to interfere with or to take precedence over any litigation between it and Boeing in the United States, and that a repudiation of the sales contracts would not impact or prejudge possible legal proceedings linked to the contracts in the United States. “We are not asking this court to exercise an exorbitant jurisdiction to interfere with those proceedings,” he said. The judge, Justice Michael Quinn, said he understood the request and that the repudiation applications were being brought “out of an abundance of caution [and] without prejudice to the US litigation.” Norwegian had pre-Covid contractual commitments to buy both Boeing and Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) aircraft spanning from 2020 to 2027, totalling USD9.55 billion. But last June, it unilaterally cancelled the Boeing orders, which were for ninety-two B737-8s and five B787-9s. Boeing disputed the move, and last month a lawyer told the High Court that the US company had refused to involve itself in Norwegian’s examinership proceedings. As previously reported, last month Norwegian obtained the Irish court’s agreement to cancel all 88 aircraft on order from Airbus. Data from the European manufacturer revealed on March 5 that the disappearance of the orders had left it with more cancellations than orders so far in 2020.