Latest Cases

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant challenged the decision of the inspector appointed by the first defendant Secretary of State dismissing its appeal against the refusal of planning permission for construction of up to 320 dwellings. The Planning Court, in dismissing the application, held that the inspector had not misapplied or misconstrued a policy of the local plan or the National Planning Policy Framework. Further, as the relevant housing supply policies had been set out in the local plan and had not arguably been out of date, the presumption had been against planning permission. 

Extradition – Extradition hearing. The judge discharged the respondent from extradition to the United States to face seven charges of sexual offences in New York on the basis extradition would violate his rights under art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, given the possibility of civil commitment under New York law absent mental disorder. The Divisional Court, in allowing the requesting state's appeal, held that the New York process would be consistent with art 5 of the Convention, if enacted in a Convention state. The judge had placed too much weight on the opinions of the respondent's witness and had given insufficient attention to the strict requirements of New York law. 

Income tax – Double taxation relief. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) (the tribunal) dismissed the appeal by the Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P & O) against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) to uphold the decision of the Revenue and Customs Commissioners to substantially reduce P & O's claim for double taxation relief. The tribunal decided that the natural, and correct, construction of s 799(1) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 was that where there was no foreign tax (or UK tax which was treated as if it was foreign tax) there was also no tax which could be taken into account for the purposes of that sub-section. 

Contract – Damages for breach. The Supreme Court considered a dispute arising from a ban on the export of wheat from Russia, which had prevented the carrying out of an agreement to sell wheat between the defendant seller and the claimant buyer. The GAFTA Board of Appeal held that the seller was liable to the buyer. The Supreme Court held that the Board of Appeal had been right to find against the seller in liability, but that, applying the principle in Golden Strait Corpn v Nippon Yusen Kubishika Kaisha ([2007] 2 All ER (Comm) 97)the award of the Board of Appeal would be varied to substitute a sum of nominal damages. 

Conflict of laws – Applicable law – Civil procedure – Limitation of actions. Court of Session: In an action by the trustees of a retirements benefits scheme, who took out a deferred annuity guarantee contract (DAGC) policy with a mutual life office and engaged the first defender, an employee of the life office, as a scheme actuary, claiming damages for breach of contract and negligence in relation to the advice the first defender gave them in 1999 concerning their decision to switch the scheme's assets from a DAGC to a managed fund contract, the court held that, as the defenders maintained, the proper law of the contract between the pursuers and the first defender, and of the alleged delict, was English law, and that under English law the pursuers' claim was statute barred in terms of the Limitation Act 1980. 

Immigration – Detention. The claimant Afghani national claimed damages for unlawful immigration detention for 19 days. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the application, held that the claimant had failed to show that his serious mental illness could not be satisfactorily managed in conditions of detention. The Secretary of State had been correct and, in any event, had been entitled to the view that the claimant had not fallen into the category of someone in respect of whom there had been independent evidence of torture. Further, it could not be said that a reasonable time to effect deportation had expired. 

Costs – Order for costs. In earlier proceedings the claimants had been awarded damages against the defendant proprietor of three newspapers for the infringements of privacy rights based on phone hacking, private investigators and publication of articles in the defendant's newspapers. They sought indemnity costs relying on CPR Pt 36 offers, which had not been accepted and on the defendant's alleged unreasonable conduct in the litigation. The Chancery Division dismissed the applications. The Pt 36 offer by one defendant had lost much of its significance as a result of its withdrawal and a 'Calderbank' offer in respect of the other defendant was weaker by having never been a Pt 36 offer. The defendant's conduct had not been so unreasonable as to warrant the making of an indemnity costs order. 

Value added tax – Input tax. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) (the tribunal) upheld the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) to allow the appeal brought by the taxpayer University of Cambridge against a decision of the Revenue and Customs Commissioners to refuse the university's claim to deduct some of the VAT paid in respect of services supplied to the university by managers of the Cambridge University Endowment Fund. The tribunal decided that the costs associated with the university's investment activity had been part of the university's overheads and, as such, deductible in accordance with the agreement existing between the university and the Revenue. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union allowed the action brought by the Gambling Commission (formerly the National Lottery Commission, established in the United Kingdom), against the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) relating to invalidity proceedings between Mediatek Italia Srl and another and the Gambling Commission concerning the registration by the latter of a Community figurative trade mark depicting a smiling hand. 

Value added tax – Supply of goods or services. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) dismissed the appeal by the Revenue and Customs Commissioners against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) (the FTT) rejecting the Revenue's case that the FTT had erred in: (i) its approach to the characterisation of loan broking services as made by a company to which Mr Newey had transferred his loan broking business; and (ii) deciding that the arrangements at issue had not constituted an abuse practice.