Latest Cases

Adoption – Application. The Family Division dismissed an application made by RY to adopt SL, who had experienced hypoxic-ischaemic enceophalopathy at birth and suffered from a number of conditions resulting from it. It held that RY had demonstrated a pattern of failure to work with medical professionals and to accept advice, and that the risk of harm she presented to SL was real and serious. 

Sentencing – Careless driving – Failure to report accident. High Court of Justiciary: In an appeal against sentence by an appellant who pled guilty to charges of careless driving and failure to report an accident, the sheriff having found that the two offences were not committed on the same occasion and imposed six penalty points in respect of each charge, discounted in each case to four, the court held, it being accepted that it was incompetent for the sheriff to impose less than five points for the offence of failure to report, that the offences arose on the same occasion and that penalty points should only have been imposed in respect of the charge of failing to report, as that was the offence to which a higher number of penalty points could be attributed: it accordingly allowed the appeal to the extent of quashing the penalty points attributable to the careless driving charge and increasing those attributable to the charge of failing to report to five. 

Partnership – Liability of new partners. Court of Session: In an action which the liquidator of a company raised against a firm of solicitors and eight of its partners, contending that the company was defrauded of £90m and alleging that the defenders' dishonestly assisted a director in committing a breach of his fiduciary duties, the court held that there were no averments that would allow the liquidator to lead evidence that three of the defenders, either expressly or tacitly, agreed to take over the existing liabilities of the previous firm and it dismissed the case so far as laid against them; it also refused to allow receipt of a minute of amendment seeking to add five further current and former partners of the firm as defenders, and refused to order the defenders to answer questions about the insurance position. 

European Union – Consumer protection. The Court of Justice of the European Union held that, art 2(b) of Council Directive (EEC) 93/13 had to be interpreted as meaning that a natural person who practised as a lawyer and concluded a credit agreement with a bank, in which the purpose of the credit was not specified, might be regarded as a 'consumer' within the meaning of that provision, where that agreement was not linked to that lawyer's profession. The fact that the debt that arose out of the same contract was secured by a mortgage taken out by that person in his capacity as representative of his law firm and involved goods intended for the exercise of that person's profession, such as a building that belonged to that firm, was not relevant in that regard. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. A local authority applied for a care order in respect of a child in circumstances where the parents' first child had died. While the death had been classified as sudden infant death syndrome, concerns had been raised regarding possible abuse. The Family Court, following a fact-finding hearing, dismissed the authority's application as the threshold test under s 31 of the Children Act 1989 had not been passed on the balance of probabilities and there was no likelihood that the new child would suffer significant harm in the parents' care. 

European Union – State aid. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that art 14 of Council Regulation (EC) 659/1999 and arts 11 and 13 of Commission Regulation (EC) 794/2004 did not preclude national legislation, such as that at issue in the present proceedings, which, by means of a reference to Regulation 794/2004, provided for the application of compound interest to the recovery of state aid, even though the decision declaring that aid incompatible with the common market and ordering its recovery had been adopted and notified to the member state concerned before that Regulation had entered into force. 

Freedom of information – Exempt information. The Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO) had, during the course of a raid, collected a list of names of journalists who had obtained information through an investigator. The respondent had sought disclosure of those names under a Freedom of Information request. The ICO refused the request, and that was upheld by the Information Commissioner. The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) determined that some of the names should be disclosed. The Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) upheld the FTT's decision, as there had been no error of law in its decision that the information in issue was not 'sensitive personal data' within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 and that its disclosure was for a legitimate purpose, rather than an unwarranted intrusion into the journalists' privacy rights. 

European Union – Freedom of movement. The Court of Justice gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that Directive (EC) 2003/109 precluded national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which required third-country nationals, when applying for the issue or renewal of a European residence permit in the member state concerned, to pay a fee which varied in amount between €80 and €200, inasmuch as such a fee was disproportionate in the light of the objective pursued by that Directive and was liable to create an obstacle to the exercise of the rights conferred by that Directive. 

Company – Director. The Chancery Division dismissed an application by the liquidator of a company, under s 212 of the Insolvency Act 1986, against the respondent former director and majority shareholder of the company. It held, among other things, that the claim under s 172 of the Companies Act 2006 failed and the respondent had not been in breach of his duty under s 174 of the 2006 Act. 

European Union – Taxation. The Court of Justice gave a preliminary ruling, holding that art 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union was to be interpreted as preluding rules of a member state that governed a tax integration regime under which a tax-integrated parent company was entitled to neutralisation regarding the add-back of a proportion of costs and expenses, fixed at 5% of the net amount of the dividends received by it from tax-integrated resident companies, when such neutralisation was refused to it under those rules regarding the dividends distributed to it from subsidiaries located in another member state, which, had they been resident, would have been eligible in practice if they so had elected.