Latest Cases

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. A university sought to make a book available in its library via electronic reading points. The owner of the user rights to the book, Ulmer, sought to prevent the book from being made available in that way. In the course of proceedings, the German Federal Court of Justice referred three preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Court rulings on the interpretation of art 5(3)(n) of Directive (EC) 2001/29. 

Bank – Documentary credit. The judge continued and made interlocutory an interim injunction restraining the second respondent bank from making a payment to the appellant under a letter of credit, as the fraud exception had been established. The Court of Appeal in the Supreme Court in Mauritius affirmed the decision and the appellant appealed. The Privy Council articulated the fraud exception test applicable to letters of credit at the interlocutory stage, but held that the fraud exception had not been satisfied. Further, the judge had erred in his approach to the balance of convenience, given the insuperable difficulty recognised by the authorities. 

Reparation – Negligence – Duty of care. Court of Session: In an action in which the pursuers sought damages in respect of loss caused by fire in a farmhouse and outbuildings they owned, averring that the fire damage was caused as a result of fault and negligence of the defenders, firefighters having concluded that they had extinguished a fire at the farm but the fire having re-ignited after their departure, the court concluded that the pursuers had pled a relevant case which entitled them to proof before answer. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The appellant was convicted of assault in Poland, for which he received a suspended sentence, and he committed a further offence during his probationary period. He then came to the UK, where he worked to financially support his fiancée's family in Poland. A European arrest warrant was issued and the district judge made an order for his extradition to Poland. The appellant appealed. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the appeal, held that extradition would not be a disproportionate interference with his rights under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Police – Discipline. The claimant police officers issued judicial review proceedings, challenging the refusal of their appeals against the continued imposition of the service confidence procedure (SCP) against them. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the application, held that the decisions had sufficient public law element. However, the circumstances which led to a decision to invoke the SCP required that the court not intervene in the absence of very exceptional circumstances and that threshold had not been met. There was no patent and unanswerable illogicality/irrationality/unfairness in the defendant's decisions. 

Marriage – Foreign marriage. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed a wife's appeal against a declaration that her marriage by way of Nikah in Pakistan had been valid. On the new evidence presented, the decree absolute that had purported to end her previous marriage had been void as issued less than six weeks after the decree nisi. In any event, the amended date of decree absolute meant that the marriage had not been dissolved for the three month period required by Sharia law before a woman could re-marry. The matter would be remitted to consider whether the fact that her previous marriage had been a nullity due to the husband's bigamy had any impact upon the validity of the parties' marriage. 

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. 

Landlord and tenant – Service charge. The Chancery Division held that a landlord was not entitled to charge the claimant tenant service charges which represented costs for refurbishment works, which it had incurred after the claimant had terminated the lease by operating a break clause. That was so, notwithstanding that the relevant works had been carried out within the original contractual period of the lease. 

Trade mark – Opposition to registration. The General Court of the European Union considered the applicant company's appeal against a decision that a contested design for 'cookies' was invalid. The General Court held that, on the evidence, the Third Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) had not erred in refusing to consider the internal appearance of the contested design, and accordingly the application would be dismissed.