Bar Wellbeing

Income tax – Tax avoidance scheme. The capital contracts arrangements that the taxpayer company was involved in were 'notifiable' arrangements within the meaning of s 306 of the Finance Act 2004. However, the taxpayer's activities did not fall within s 307(1)(a)(ii) or (iii) and accordingly, it was not a promoter of those arrangements within s 307(1)(b) of that Act. Consequently, the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) dismissed the Revenue and Customs Commissioners' application for an order, pursuant to s 314A of the Act, that those arrangements were 'notifiable' arrangements.

European Union – Value added tax. European Union law precluded national legislation which provided for the application of a measure derogating from art 193 of Council Directive (EC) 2006/112, as amended by Council Directive (EU) 2013/43, before the EU act authorising that derogation had been notified to the member state which had requested it, despite the fact that that EU act did not mention the date of its entry into force or the date from which it applied, even if that member state had expressed the wish for that derogation to apply with retroactive effect. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the payment of VAT by a taxable person who had been supplied with services subject to VAT.

European Union – Employment. Article 2(2)(b) of Directive (EC) 2000/78 should be interpreted to the effect that a measure which, as of a specific date, provided for the application on the recruitment of new teachers of a salary scale and classification on that scale which were less advantageous than that applied, under the rules previous to that measure, to teachers recruited before that date did not constitute indirect discrimination on the grounds of age within the meaning of that provision. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the lawfulness of a national measure applied, from a certain date, to newly recruited public servants, including teachers in national schools, which provided for a salary scale and classification on that salary scale upon recruitment which were less advantageous than that applicable to teachers already employed as such.

European Union – Data protection. Article 9 of Directive (EC) 95/46 should be interpreted as meaning that factual circumstances such as those of the case in the main proceedings, namely, the video recording of police officers in a police station, while a statement was being made, and the publication of that recorded video on a video website, on which users could send, watch and share videos, could constitute a processing of personal data solely for journalistic purposes, within the meaning of that provision, in so far as it was apparent from that video that the sole object of that recording and publication thereof was the disclosure of information, opinions or ideas to the public, that being a matter which it was for the referring court to determine. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held, among other things, in a preliminary ruling in circumstances where the defendant had allegedly infringed Latvian national law by publishing a video, filmed by him, on the internet site www.youtube.com of the statement he had made in the context of administrative proceedings involving the imposition of a penalty in a station of the Latvian national police.

Nuisance – Flats. The claimants' claim in nuisance and under the Human Rights Act 1998 (the HRA 1998) failed. The claimants owned flats in a block which, they alleged, was looked into by visitors to the neighbouring Tate Modern Museum (the Tate). The Chancery Division held that the Tate had not been exercising a governmental function, and hence the claim under the HRA 1998 failed. With regard to nuisance, while the law of nuisance was capable, in an appropriate case, of operation to protect the privacy of a home as against another landowner, the claimants had been occupying a particularly sensitive property, but they had been operating in a way which had increased that sensitivity.