Latest Cases

Terrorism – Prevention of. The appellant appealed against the revival of his terrorism prevention and investigation measure and the respondent Secretary of State's decision to extend it. The Administrative Court held that the requirement that the appellant wear an electronic monitoring tag was such that there was a breach of art 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Further, restrictions on the use of electronic communications had become disproportionate due to the serious effect on the appellant's children. Accordingly, the monitoring measures would be quashed and the electronic communication measures would be varied, but the other measures could remain as they were. 

Medical practitioner – Appeal against determination of disciplinary committee. The appellant Band 6 midwife appealed against the decision of the Conduct and Competence Committee (the Panel) of the respondent Nursing and Midwifery Council, finding that her fitness to practise was impaired and striking her off the register. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the appeal, rejected the appellant's grounds of appeal, including that there had been delay, changes in the charges, discrimination based on her disability, and that the sanction had been unreasonable and disproportionate. 

Will – Forgery. The Chancery Division considered the validity of a disputed will. It held that, while the circumstances of the making of the will gave rise to suspicion, on the evidence, the will had been made validly and there was no room for finding that the testatrix's signature had been forged. 

Contract – Construction. The claimant had undertaken work on a project, pursuant to a contract with the defendant for the provision of environmental training. The judge dismissed the claimant's claim for unpaid invoices, holding, inter alia, that it was a contractual requirement that sufficient evidence be provided of the actual content of the workshop and that evidence had not been provided, in particular, no presentation slides had been produced. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the claimant's appeal, held that the material provided had complied with the workshop requirements. Further, if the judge had been intending to say that there had been a contractual obligation to provide slides, the present court disagreed. 

Contract – Construction. In a claim by the claimant bakery against the defendants cupcake manufacturers regarding the defendants right to manufacture products. The Queen's Bench Division dismissed an appeal against the grant of summary judgment in favour of the defendants. It did so on the basis that the claimant's case that there was a temporal limitation on the defendants' right to manufacture was hopeless. 

Injunction – Interim injunction. The Commercial Court dismissed the claimant company's application to continue an interim injunction, which had been granted to restrain the enforcement of orders made against it in foreign proceedings brought by the defendant, where the claimant had delayed in bringing arbitration proceedings in England and where it was not arguable that the subject matter of one set of the foreign proceedings fell within the arbitration agreement. 

Mortgage – Equitable interest. The judge had dismissed a claim by the defendant, W, to have an overriding interest enforceable against the claimant based on an entitlement in equity to ownership of a property and, by reason of such overriding interest, to be entitled to the proceeds of sale. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the defendant's appeal, held, inter alia, that the judge had been right to hold that the defendant had been precluded, by operation of the principle in Brocklesby v Temperance Permanent Building Society and others ([1895-9] All ER Rep Ext 2099), from maintaining that he had a beneficial interest in relation to the property with potential to have priority over the security interest of the claimant and, hence, that he could not claim to have an overriding interest as against the claimant. 

Value added tax – Exemptions. The taxpayer companies operated as licensed lap dancing or table dancing clubs. In the course of their business they operated a voucher scheme for their customers for which they charged 20% commission on redemption of each voucher. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) dismissed the appeal by the taxpayers against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) which had upheld the assessment by the Revenue and Customs Commissioners that that commission was payment to the Revenue for taxable supplies for VAT purposes. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division, in response to letters of request send from United States Court for information needed in the US proceedings, made an order agreeing to the disclosing of certain information by the respondents. The respondents were corporations based in the UK specialising in corporate investigations so therefore it was in the public interest that the respondents did not disclose their individual sources. 

Patent – Infringement. The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court held that claims 1 and 7 of European Patent (UK) No 2,099,626 B1 (the patent), which claimed an invention entitled 'System for indicating the state of loading of a vehicle', were invalid for lack of inventive step over an item of prior art, namely US Patent No 6,591,677.