Latest Cases

Injunction – Interim. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, partially allowed the defendants' appeal against an interim injunction granted to the claimants in wide terms. The defendants' draft order had offered terms which adequately protected the claimant pending trial and the claimant's additions to the draft order were rejected. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Jaguar Land Rover Ltd (Jaguar) against the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, concerning the application by Jaguar for registration of a three-dimensional sign in the shape of a car as a Community trade mark. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division set aside an order by a master for service out side the jurisdiction in relation to a claim for libel and misuse of confidential information on the grounds of material non-disclosure mainly for the failure by the claimant to disclose his Serbian nationality. 

Immigration – Detention. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant Libyan national's application for judicial review of his immigration detention for 21 months. There had, at all times, been a substantial risk that the claimant would abscond and that he would re-offend if released, and there had been a sufficient prospect of removal to warrant the claimant's continued detention. 

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. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division held that the mother had failed to establish that the father had acquiesced to having the child removed from the Ukraine to the United Kingdom. She had also failed to established a risk of physical or psychological harm and the child would therefore be returned to the Ukraine. 

Patent – Infringement. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant's appeal against revocation of its patent entitled 'Interactive special events video signal navigation system' concerning the ability of a television viewer to interact with his television set so as to cause it to display information. The judge had not taken too broad an approach in his construction of the claim. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the appellant's appeals against two judges' orders for his extradition to Poland under two European arrest warrants (EAW), held that, where two cases were being heard together on appeal, proportionality could only properly be decided with reference to everything which underpinned the public interest in extradition being weighed in the balance. Taking all matters into account, there was no doubt that the appellant should be extradited in respect of both EAWs. 

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. 

Mental health – Court of Protection. The Court of Protection dismissed a mother's appeal against a judge's decision declaring that her daughter, who had autistic spectrum disorder, lacked capacity and that it was in her best interest to move to a supported living placement. The judge had been entitled, on the facts, to come to the decisions that he had and, in so doing, had not breached art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.