Latest Cases

Disclosure and inspection of documents – Confidential documents. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed appeals against case management and other orders in proceedings brought by 565 claimant companies against British Airways arising out of an alleged unlawful cartel. It held that the unredacted version of a European Commission decision should not be disclosed to members of a confidentiality ring and economic tort claims should be struck out, as the judge had erred in his approach to the issue of intent. 

Patent – Infringement. The Chancery Division considered the validity of two claims in a patent dispute concerning a technique to prevent the corrosion of rebars used in reinforced concrete. The court held that claim 1 of the patent, which described a method, was valid but not infringed. However, claim 12 of the patent, which described a product suitable for use in the technique, was invalid. 

Costs – Order for costs. The Technology and Construction Court made no order for costs on applications by both the claimant company and the defendant company to amend their respective pleadings, which had been allowed in earlier proceedings. Each party was ordered to bear their own cost in circumstances where each party had opposed the other's application to amend their pleadings. 

Practice – Statement of claim. The Technology and Construction Court granted the claimant company's application, at a pre-trial review, to amend its particulars of claim for fees said to be due under contract, and its reply and defence to the defendant company's counterclaim. The court further granted the defendant's application to amend its pleadings after matters had come to light in the disclosure exercise. 

Practice – Striking out. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant's appeal against strike out of his particulars of claim on the ground of abuse of process, the grant of summary judgment in favour of the defendant bank and dismissal of his claim. On the facts and the procedural history, the defendant had discharged the burden imposed upon it of demonstrating that the present was a case which had clearly engaged the established principles of abuse of process. 

Company – Winding up. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the appellant property developer's appeal against the dismissal of its application for an injunction to restrain the respondent building contractor from presenting a winding-up petition against it. Given that the respondent had, in fact, gone into voluntary liquidation after the hearing, the discretion would be re-exercised by granting a permanent injunction restraining presentation of a petition against the appellant based on interim certificates. 

Personal injury – Provisional damages – Tender and acceptance. Court of Session: In a personal injury action by a pursuer who had developed pleural plaques as a result of his exposure to asbestos, in which the pursuer accepted the defenders' tender of £7,000 provisional damages and enrolled a motion for decree in terms of the minute of tender and minute of acceptance, the court concluded that it should pronounce decree in terms of those minutes and make an order that the pursuer could apply for further damages if he developed either mesothelioma or bronchial carcinoma, rather than the wider order he sought reserving to him the right to apply for further award of damages if he developed 'an asbestos-related condition other than pleural plaques'. 

Sentencing – Sexual Offences Act 2003 – Notification requirements. High Court of Justiciary: Refusing an appeal by an appellant who pled guilty to an offence of threatening or abusive behaviour involving obtaining clandestine access to an intimate photograph on the complainer's mobile showing her naked private parts and transmitting it electronically to a third party, the court held that the sheriff was entitled to find that there was a 'significant sexual aspect' to the offence, which meant that the appellant became subject to the notification requirements in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. 

European Union – Value added tax. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding, among other things that, art 9(1) of Council Directive (EC) 2006/112 had to be interpreted as meaning that an activity such as that at issue in the main proceedings, whereby a company provided a region with services in respect of the planning and management of the regional health service under the programme agreements concluded between that company and that region, constituted an economic activity within the meaning of that provision. 

Immigration – Deportation. The Administrative Court, in partially allowing the claimant's judicial review proceedings, found that, for four months, he had been subject to a curfew and tagging when he should not have been. Accordingly, the elements of false imprisonment had been made out during that period.