Latest Cases

Company – Administration order. The Chancery Division made rulings to assist the administration of a number of companies in the same group. Among other things, the court approved a proposed structure by which new administrators were appointed and made an order that the framework provided by paras 98 and 75 of Sch B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986 was appropriate to deal with the removal of the administrators. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Planning Court dismissed the claimants' challenge to the decision of the inspector appointed by the first defendant Secretary of State to dismiss their conjoined planning appeals and to refuse planning permission. The inspector had produced a clearly reasoned decision, having applied appropriate planning judgment and claimants' grounds of challenge were unarguable. 

Damages – Personal injury. The Queen's Bench Division found that the claimant was suffering from chronic widespread pain and additional mental illness and which he would not have suffered from but for the accident he experienced whilst in the army and which caused his subsequent discharge. On that finding the court made an award of general damages of £30,000 and other additional awards. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant's challenge to the decision of the defendant local planning authority, granting planning permission for the erection of a building for office, light industrial and warehouse uses. There had been errors in the authority's approach to the development plan, but the same decision would have been reached in any event. 

Insolvency – Cross-border insolvency. The Chancery Division held that foreign representatives and their advisers had to ensure that the valuable process for recognition under the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency, as incorporated into English law by the Cross-Border Insolvency Regulations 2006 SI 2006/1030, was not misused. When seeking recognition, full and frank disclosure had to be made to the court in relation to the consequences that recognition of the foreign proceeding might have upon third parties who were not before the court. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the appellant's appeal against findings made in the course of care proceedings that he had sexually abused three children, held that no court could have reasonably found that he had abused any of those children on the basis of the evidence adduced before the recorder. 

Contract – Implied term. The Chancery Division held, among other things, that the second defendant company was obliged under the terms of a lease to provide 280 spaces at a site at Heathrow airport. An order for specific performance was granted in favour of Heathrow Airport Ltd. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The Planning Court dismissed the claimant company's challenge to the decision of the inspector appointed by the defendant Secretary of State, refusing planning permission for a mixed use development, including a supermarket, apartments and townhouses. The inspector's decision was short, clear, succinct and, having regard to the applicable principles, showed no evidence of unlawfulness or irrationality. 

Adoption – Dispensing with consent of parent or guardian. The Family Court approved proposals made by two local authorities regarding the future of the two daughters of the respondent mother and father. It held that, given the mental state of the father and the environment in which the children had been growing up, the parents would be refused contact with the older child and that an adoption order would be made in relation to the younger child. 

Children and young persons – Jurisdiction. The Family Division held that where there had been wrongful retention by the father of the children in Somalia that wrongful retention did not change the fact that the children had habitual residence in the United Kingdom and therefore the courts of England and Wales had jurisdiction in regard to an application to return the children to the UK having regard to Council Regulation (EC) 2201/2003.