Latest Cases

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. 

Nationality – British nationality. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the applicants' appeals against dismissal of their applications for judicial review in respect of the Secretary of State's decision to render null and void the grant to them of British citizenship. There was an implied limitation upon the powers of the Secretary of State to grant citizenship under s 6 of the British Nationality Act 1981. An applicant for naturalisation was not entitled to be naturalised if he had engaged in fraud to impersonate another of such seriousness and of such centrality to the application that had been made as wholly to undermine the statutory process. That implied limitation could not sensibly be read as concerned only with a narrow focus on how to identify the person who had applied for naturalisation simply by reference to whether they had indefinite leave to remain as an identifiable individual. 

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. 

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. 

Negligence – Causation. The Queen's Bench Division dismissed the claimant's claim for breach of duty against the defendant hospital in respect of a failure to give corticosteroid drugs to the claimant's mother, H, before her delivery by emergency Caesarean section. It found that the failure to give the drugs did not cause or materially contribute to her developing post-natal Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) as a result of which she required mechanical ventilation. 

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. 

Social Security – Benefit. The Administrative Court held that the failure to exempt at least individual family carers from the benefit cap on some who received carer's allowance, under Pt 8A of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, SI 2006/213, was unlawful because it amounted to indirect discrimination which was not objectively justifiable. However, the Regulations were not unlawful as disproportionate or unreasonable. 

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. 

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.