Latest Cases

Value added tax – Supply of goods or services. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) (the tribunal) allowed the appeal by Intelligent Managed Services Ltd (IMSL) against the decision of the Revenue and Customs Commissioners that the transfer of IMSL's banking support services business to Virgin Money Management Services Ltd (VMMSL), a member of the Virgin Money Group VAT group, was not a 'transfer of a going concern', with the result that the transfer gave rise to supplies of goods and services that were subject to VAT. The tribunal decided that the transfer by IMSL of the assets of its business to VMMSL had satisfied the conditions of art 5(1) of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995, SI 1995/1268, and those supplies were accordingly to be treated as neither a supply of goods nor a supply of services. 

Contract – Termination of contract. The Chancery Division held that Sainsbury's had been entitled to terminate a conditional agreement for the purchase of a stadium from the defendant, Bristol Rovers (1883) Ltd, where a condition precedent of the contract which required Sainsbury's to obtain an acceptable store planning permission to redevelop the stadium as a supermarket, had not been satisfied. 

Solicitor – Negligence. The Chancery Division held that the claimant company's claim for damages for breach of contract and/or negligence against its former solicitors would succeed, where the defendant solicitors had failed to inform the claimant of plans to develop a school near the property that the claimant had intended to purchase. 

Contempt of court – Committal. The claimant local planning authority sought the committal of the defendant for contempt of court by reason of breaches of an injunction in relation to unauthorised use of land. The Queen's Bench Division held that the appropriate sentence was one of four months' imprisonment, but that would be suspended provided the defendant adhered to the timings set out in the undertakings which were accepted and the court's order. 

Criminal law – Proceeds of crime. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in dismissing the defendant's appeal against his conviction for converting criminal property, held, among other things, that there had been an evidential foundation upon which the jury had been entitled to conclude that they were sure that the defendant had been criminally dishonest in his financial dealings and that, in any event, his financial dealings had led to an irresistible inference that they had to have been based on criminal conduct. 

Rates – Exemption. The issue on the appeal was whether a hereditament was exempt from domestic rates under s 51 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 as agricultural land or as comprising agricultural buildings within Sch 5 to that Act. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appellant's appeal, held that the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) had been correct to hold, on the facts of the case, that the hereditament was not a market garden but, rather, was nursery ground, for the purposes of Sch 5 to the Act. 

Practice – Compromise of action. Following settlement of an action, the appellant's shares in a company were to be purchased by the first respondent at a price to be determined by an independent valuer. The appellant unsuccessfully challenged the valuation as not being in accordance with the valuer's mandate as set out in the Tomlin Order. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the appeal as, on the true construction of the express terms of the settlement, the valuer had been instructed to arrive at his valuation with regard to the books and records, including the handwritten takings, of the company. He had failed to take into account the handwritten takings and so had not followed his mandate. 

Conflict of laws – Jurisdiction. The Commercial Court considered the preliminary issue of which law would apply to a fraud perpetrated in Geneva, in which funds had been sent from the claimant bank, which was in Geneva, to London. The court held that English law would apply on the proper application of European Parliament and Council (EC) Regulation 864/2007 (on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations). 

Civil procedure – Summary cause action for delivery of documents – Competency: Sheriff Court: Allowing an apppeal in a summary cause action in which the appellant sought delivery of certain files, records and documents the respondents held in connection with actions pending in the Court of Session, and which the sheriff considered was incompetently raised in the sheriff court as more appropriate methods were open to the appellant to obtain the remedy he sought, the court held that the sheriff had erred, because the existence of separate, or alternative, or more expeditious procedure could not justify dismissing as incompetent proceedings which were ex facie competent. 

Town and country planning – Planning permission. Court of Session: Refusing an appeal against the decision of a reporter appointed by the Scottish Minsters, a local authority having refused planning permission for the construction of two electricity substations and associated works and the reporter having allowed the developer's appeal and granted permission subject to conditions, the court rejected the appellants' contentions that the reporter had adopted an unfair procedure in not holding an oral hearing, that he acted irrationally in his assessment of the likely visual impact of the proposed development and that he had failed to carry out an environmental assessment which complied with an EU directive.