Latest Cases

Contract – Construction. The claimant, Lehman Brothers, brought a claim for the balance of a sum which it contended was due from the defendant arising out of early termination of four option transactions governed by an International Swaps and Derivatives Association agreement, together with interest. The defendant had paid the claimant €1,849,968.99. The Commercial Court held, among other things, that the defendant had breached its contractual obligation to use the agreed market quotation formula to determine the sum due. Using that formula, a payment of €2,963,081.18 should have been made. 

Judge – District judge. The defendant Judicial Appointments Commission (the JAC) rejected the claimant solicitor and deputy district judge's application for appointment as a district judge, as he had seven penalty points on his driving licence. The claimant sought judicial review. The Divisional Court, in dismissing the application, held that the JAC had been entitled to consider that public confidence in the standards of the judiciary would not be maintained if persons appointed to judicial office had more than six points endorsed on their licence. The JAC had appreciated its discretion to depart from the normal position and had not exercised it. Further, the decision had not been irrational, by virtue of the fact that the claimant continued to sit as a deputy district judge. 

Practice – Striking out. The claimant solicitor and the second defendant retired solicitor had acted for the first defendant in a boundary dispute. The differences arising from that litigation resulted in further proceedings between the parties. The Queen's Bench Division dealt with their application notices. It held that there was no basis to strike out the claimant's application against the defendants under the Protection from Harassment Act 1977. However, the court struck out the witness statements of the defendants and the second defendant's wife as irrelevant, an abuse of the court's process and likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings. 

Solicitor – Disciplinary proceedings. The appellant in-house solicitor for a newspaper appealed against the finding of the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal (the SDT) that he was guilty of failing to act with integrity and knowingly allowing the judge to be misled in the conduct of litigation. The Divisional Court, in allowing the appeal in part, held that the judge had been misled. The SDT, having disavowed making any finding of dishonesty, could not properly proceed to make a finding that the appellant had knowingly allowed the judge to be misled. However, it was inevitable that the SDT would have found him guilty on the basis that he had recklessly allowed the judge to be misled. 

European Union – Data protection. The Court of Justice of the European Union made a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of arts 2(a), 12(a) and 13(1)(d), (f) and (g) of Directive (EC) 95/46 of the European Parliament and of the Council (on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data), and of arts 8(2) and 41(2)(b) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The requests had been made in two sets of proceedings between third country nationals who had applied for a residence permit for a fixed period in the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Minister for Immigration, Integration and Asylum, concerning the Minister's refusal to communicate to those nationals a copy of an administrative document drafted before the adoption of the decisions on their applications for residence permits. 

European Union – Reference to European Court. The Court of Justice of the European Union held, on a preliminary ruling, that Council Directive (EEC) 91/477 (on the control of the acquisition and possession of weapons), as amended by Council and European Parliament Directive (EC) 2008/51, should be interpreted as not precluding national legislation, such as that which was at issue in the main proceedings, which authorised the issue of a European firearms pass only to holders of weapons used for hunting and target shooting purposes. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The appellant was convicted of an offence against his family in Poland and sentenced to a suspended sentence. He came to reside in the United Kingdom, where he worked and had a fiancée, with whom he had an 18 month old daughter. The respondent judicial authority sought the appellant's return to Poland to serve his sentence and the district judge made an order for his extradition. The appellant appealed. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the appeal, held that the hardship which extradition would cause the appellant did not amount to exceptional hardship and that it was not sufficient to outweigh the public interest in extradition. 

Child – Welfare. Following the removal of his brain tumour, the parents of A, a boy aged five, disputed the hospital's proposed further treatment. They, before removing him to Spain, proposed therapy generally unavailable in the United Kingdom and A's referral to a facility in Prague. On the local authority's application, the judge made A a ward of the court and ordered a further hearing. Following receipt of further information, the Family Division held that there was no reason to stand in the way of the parents' proposal. Both proposed courses were reasonable and it was the parents who bore the heavy responsibility of making a decision. 

Company – Winding up. The trial of a preliminary issue was ordered, concerning the priority to be given to the payment of certain charges owed to the respondent company for gas and electricity supplied to retail premises after companies in liquidation had entered into administration and after they had been vacated by the companies. The Companies Court held that liability under the deemed contracts was provable, pursuant to r 13.12(1)(b) of the Insolvency Rules 1986, SI 1986/1925, as a liability to which the companies had become subject after the date of administration by reason of an obligation incurred before that date. 

Extradition – Discharge of fugitive. The Divisional Court, in allowing an appeal against a discharge of a European Arrest Warrant, held that, in the circumstances, the respondent had not demonstrated that extradition to Slovakia would be disproportionate under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, nor would it breach his rights under art 3 of the Convention.