Latest Cases

Extradition – Extradition order. The Divisional Court dismissed the appellant's appeal against orders for her extradition to Romania to serve a sentence of four years' imprisonment for drug offences. She would be entitled to a retrial, her extradition would not constitute inhuman or degrading punishment, and there had been no disproportionate interference with her and her children's rights under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division held that, on the facts, it had jurisdiction under, alternatively arts 4, 5 or 7 of Council Regulation (EC) 4/2009 in a case relating to maintenance obligations for a wife and child. Further orders were made. 

Minor – Removal outside jurisdiction. The Family Division held that there was no substance in any of the mother's suggested 'defences' or exceptions to an order for summary return of a child. The child had to go back to his country of habitual residence for the courts there to resolve the dispute about where he should live and with whom, as well as the mother's application to deprive the father of parental responsibility. 

Local authority – Statutory powers. The Administrative Court, in allowing the appellant local authority's appeal by way of case stated, held that the correct approach to the statutory test on an appeal against a decision to change street names was whether, according the local authority appropriate respect for its reasoning and conclusions, that decision could properly be said to be wrong. In the circumstances, the judge not been entitled to make the decision he had. 

Contract – Termination. The Commercial Court dismissed the claimant company's claim in respect of the cancellation of a contract and the failure to deliver certain bonds. It held that, among other things, owing to a disclaimer on a trade ticket used by the second defendant company, the second defendant had been entitled to cancel the contract. 

European Union – Rules on competition. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of art 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The request had been made in proceedings between SIA 'Maxima Latvija' (Maxima Latvija) and the Latvian Competition Council concerning a fine imposed by it on Maxima Latvija for having concluded a series of commercial lease agreements with shopping centres; those agreements containing a clause having an anti-competitive object. 

Value added tax – Exemptions. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) ruled on the appeal by DPAS Ltd against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) that DPAS did not make supplies of services within the exemption for transactions concerning payments or transfers to patients of dentists for whom DPAS provided practice-branded dental plans. The tribunal decided, among other things, that there was an agreement between DPAS and the existing patients who had signed and returned the relevant acceptance forms under which DPAS provided services to the patients in return for consideration. However, the issue as to whether such supplies were exempt would be reserved unil after the Court of Justice of the European Union had given its judgment in two similar cases. 

Shipbuilding contract – Arbitration clause. The Commercial Court granted the first claimant company, a buyer of a vessel under a shipbuilding contract, a final anti-suit injunction restraining a bank from continuing to pursue in China a claim against it alleging fraud where the parties had chosen London arbitration as a neutral forum and where the first claimant had obtained an arbitration award in London in which the allegations of fraud had been considered and dismissed. The court ruled that it would be vexatious and oppressive for the first claimant to have to face the same charge in two different tribunals. The court did not grant an anti-suit injunction restraining the bank's pursuit of proceedings against the second claimant bank (Alpha), which had loaned the first claimant money towards the purchase of the vessel, but was not a party to the shipbuilding contract. Alpha was, however, granted a declaration of non-liability. 

European Union – Public procurement. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that EU law precluded national legislation which made bringing an action for damages in respect of the infringement of a rule of public procurement law subject to a prior finding that the public procurement procedure for the contract in question was unlawful because of the lack of prior publication of a contract notice, where the action for a declaration of unlawfulness was subject to a six-month limitation period which started to run on the day after the date of the award of the public contract in question, irrespective of whether or not the applicant in that action had been in a position to know of the unlawfulness affecting the decision of the awarding authority. 

Account – Indebtedness. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the defendant's appeal against an order giving judgment for the claimant in the sum of £1,215,000. The judge had not fallen into error in holding that transactions between the parties in the course of a trading relationship had not been recorded in a running account, and he had not erred in the way he had approached the burden of proof and in having reached the conclusion to which he had come on that issue.