Latest Cases

Personal Injury: Quantum Case. Road traffic accident. PSLA of £3,800. The claimant sustained a soft tissue injury to the neck and upper back, and a soft tissue injury to the middle back area and right wrist. The judge awarded £3,400 for the spinal injuries and £400 for the wrist injury. 

Arbitration – Award. The Commercial Court ruled on preliminary issues concerning the claimant's applications under ss 67 and 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996 to appeal/set aside an award. It held that: (i) English law governed the question of separability, such that the arbitrators had had jurisdiction to decide the issue of validity; (ii) the arbitrators had been right to have dismissed the claimant's challenge to their jurisdiction with regard to their conclusion that the assignment of the relevant contract from the first defendant to the second defendant had been valid, and that the second defendant had been a party to the arbitration; and (iii) there was no prospect of success for the claimant's application under s 68 of the Act by reference to s 68(2)(g), and it would be struck out as unarguable. 

Criminal law – Robbery. On a reference by the Attorney General, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, held that a sentence of four years' imprisonment for the robbery of a man in his home, had been unduly lenient. In the circumstances, the offender's sentence would be quashed and, in its place, a term of nine years' imprisonment would be imposed. 

Costs – Order for costs. The Chancery Division held that, in the course of proceedings concerning three Sikh temples, the correct interpretation of an order made by the Supreme Court was that the claimants were entitled to immediate detailed assessment of all of the relevant costs. The master had dismissed the application of the first to fourth defendants for an order setting aside a notice of commencement of detailed assessment which had been served by the claimants. He had been amply entitled to exercise his discretion as he had done, and there were no grounds on which the court could or ought to interfere. 

Trade mark – Opposition. The Chancery Division allowed Gap's appeal against a decision dismissing its opposition, under s 5(2)(b) of the Trade Marks Act 1994, to an application by British American Group Ltd (BAGL) to register 'The GapTravelGuide' as a trade mark in respect of the services of magazine publishing in Class 41. The hearing officer had erred in concluding that the average customer would generally be a business and there had been inconsistency in his reasoning in certain paragraphs of his decision. There was a risk of likelihood of confusion between the 'GAP' trade mark and the mark which BAGL sought to register. 

Criminal law – Trial. In an appeal against an order imposed under s 4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, the case, for the first time, raised the question of how critical fair trial protections could be extended to prevent or control communications on social media. In the circumstances, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, revoked the s 4(2) order and ordered the various media organisations not to place any report of the criminal trial on their Facebook page(s), and, to disable the ability for users to post comments on their respective news websites on any published reports of the criminal trial. 

Family proceedings – Jurisdiction. The Supreme Court allowed an appeal by the Children's Guardian and the local authority against an order stating that the Hungarian court was better placed to hear a case regarding two children and that transferring the case to Hungary would be in the children's best interests. The children were Hungarian nationals born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents. The transfer request would be set aside and the case would be returned to the Family Division. 

Contract – Construction of contract. The Financial List considered issues concerning the rights attaching to the Class X note in a commercial mortgage-backed securitisation structure called 'Windermere VII', which had been arranged by Lehman Brothers International (Europe) in 2006. It rejected the claimant note holder's contention that the terms of an intercreditor agreement disclosed a mistake, which could be corrected by construction or by implication of words. It held, among other things, that there had not been an underpayment of the Class X interest amount for the January 2015 or October 2015 payment dates for loans made under the CMBS structure and no event of default had occurred as a consequence. 

Equity – Breach of confidence. The Queen's Bench Division, in dismissing a claim for misuse of private information and/or breach of confidence, held that the claimant had not had a reasonable expectation of privacy in any of the information in issue and a source within the defendant Ministry of Defence (the MOD) had not owed him (as opposed to the MOD) a duty of confidence. 

Counsel – Duty. The Administrative Court upheld the defendant Legal Ombudsman's determination, criticising the claimant barrister's handling of the interested party's formal complaint letter in his own letter. However, it quashed the remainder of the determination, including the decision to award the interested party the equivalent of her costs in the claimant's county court action against her for unpaid fees.