Latest Cases

Road Traffic – Disqualification from driving. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, provided guidance as to the effect of the introduction into the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 of sections 35A and 35B, provisions relating to disqualification of driving. In particular, it set out a checklist indicating an appropriate way of working to formal sentencing decisions in respect of disqualification. 

Partnership – Partnership agreement – Construction – Retiral from partnership. Court of Session: In a dispute concerning the sum due to a former partner in respect of his share of the partnership assets after he was compelled to retire from a solicitors' partnership in terms of a clause of the partnership agreement, having reached the age of 65, the court held that the agreement did not incorporate an agreed basis for the pursuer to obtain a share of the net partnership assets in the circumstances in which he ceased to be a partner and accordingly his entitlement fell to be determined by the general law, under which the whole net assets of the partnership should be shared equally between the partners. 

Judicial review – Foster carer – Deregistration. Court of Session: Dismissing a judicial review petition by a petitioner who was jointly registered with her husband as a foster carer by the respondent local authority, and who sought reduction of the respondents' decisions to deregister her and her husband following the respondents' own investigation of serious allegations about the husband's conduct made by a child who had been in the petitioner and her husband's care (the police having investigated but taken no further action), the court rejected the petitioner's contentions that reduction of the respondents' decisions should be granted because they had failed to adequately take into account her blameless position and had failed to discuss with her the possibility of a variation of the joint registration. 

Sentence – Mandatory life sentence. The Divisional Court dismissed the claimant's application for judicial review of the defendant Secretary of State's acceptance of the judge's determination that his tariff should not be reduced. Although a victim personal statement should not have been considered by the judge if its author had been unwilling to have it disclosed to the claimant, the judge's decision had been inevitable. 

European Union – Residence. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that art 7(1)(c) of Council Directive (EC) 2003/86 should be interpreted as allowing the competent authorities of a member state to refuse an application for family reunification on the basis of a prospective assessment of the likelihood of the sponsor retaining, or failing to retain, the necessary stable and regular resources which were sufficient to maintain himself and the members of his family, without recourse to the social assistance system of that member state, in the year following the date of submission of that application, that assessment being based on the pattern of the sponsor's income in the six months preceding that date. 

Negligence – Causation. The Queen's Bench Division held, in dismissing the claimant's case in negligence against the Secretary of State for Health, that there had been no breach of duty in respect of the delivery of a twin in circumstances where she was deprived of oxygen and suffered serious brain injury. 

European Union – Companies. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that European Union law should be interpreted as meaning that: – the law applicable following a cross-border merger by acquisition to the interpretation of a loan contract taken out by the acquired company, such as the contracts at issue in the main proceedings, to the performance of the obligations under the contract and to how those obligations were extinguished was the law which was applicable to the contract before the merger; – the provisions governing the protection of the creditors of the acquired company, in a case such as that at issue in the main proceedings, were those of national law which were applicable to that company. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Aranynektár Termékgyártó és Kereskedelmi KFT (Aranynektár) against the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office concerning opposition proceedings between Naturval Apícola, SL, and Aranynektár, regarding the application by the latter for registration of the word sign 'Natur-bal' as an EU trade mark. 

Value added tax – Appeal. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) dismissed the appellants' appeal against a finding of the First Tier Tribunal that the sale of the freehold interest in the property to them by the trustee had been chargeable to VAT at the standard rate. The interpretation of para 30 of Sch 10 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 that the appellants put forward was a strained construction, and the issue would be decided in favour of the defendant Revenue and Customs Commissioners. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Laboratorios Ern, SA against the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office, relating to opposition proceedings concerning the application by the intervener, Matthias Werner, for registration of a figurative sign 'Dynamic Life' as a European Union trade mark.