Latest Cases

Licence – Failure of consideration. The parties contracted to enable them to carry out work in Indonesia relating to the raising of oil platforms. A dispute arose as to whether the defendant company had agreed to pay the claimant a licence fee. The defendant counterclaimed for unpaid invoices. The Commercial Court held that, on the evidence, the claim would be dismissed and the counterclaim allowed. 

Sentence – Imprisonment. The defendants robbed the victim of his phone and jacket and forced him to withdraw £210 from a cash machine, during the course of a robbery in which the victim was pushed to the ground and struck with a dog chain. The defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 16 months and two years' detention respectively. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division gave the Attorney General leave to refer the sentences as being unduly lenient and substituted sentences of 32 months and three years' detention. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The appeal concerned what regard, if any, when considering an application to extend the time for appealing in a family case relating to children, the judge should have to the overall merits of the proposed appeal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the father's appeal, held that, in the present case, the judge had underestimated the underlying merits of the father's appeal, considering that the new grounds of appeal had been merely arguable when, in truth, they had been unanswerable. That flawed analysis had caused him to attribute no real weight to the underlying merits in his relief from sanction analysis. The present case was one where the court could see, without much investigation, that the proposed grounds of appeal were very strong and the merits had a significant part to play when it came to balancing the various factors that had to be considered. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant local planning authority applied to quash the decision of the inspector appointed by the first defendant Secretary of State to grant the second and third defendant developers planning permission for 120 residential dwellings. The Planning Court, in dismissing the application, held that the inspector had been entitled to find that there had not been any basis for taking any of the new student accommodation into account as part of the housing supply. Further, she had not been establishing a test, but providing an example of how student accommodation might be included in the housing supply. 

Parent and child – Adoption – Recognition of foreign adoption. Court of Session: In a petition in which the petitioners sought recognition of an Ethiopian adoption order at common law, there being no mechanism for its statutory recognition in Scotland, the court considered that it was competent to pronounce the order sought, and it did so. 

Road traffic – Driver's records. The claimant sought judicial review of the defendant Secretary of State's decision that requests from his business and its clients, pursuant to reg 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, SI 2002/2742, would be refused unless the business complied with a condition that it should become a member of an accredited trade association (ATA), pursuant to his policy. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the application, held that the decision was not irrational. The Secretary of State had not imposed an unlawful and rigid pre-condition, and he had not surrendered his power under the Regulations to an ATA. 

Immigration – Education. The defendant Secretary of State found that a proxy test-taker had taken the claimant Bangladeshi national's English language tests and issued a notice of removal. The claimant sought judicial review. The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), in dismissing the application, held that no improper purpose had been established. Further, an out of country appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) was a demonstrably superior mechanism for the present species of challenge and that fact rendered the claimant's further procedural unfairness ground of challenge moot, as that tribunal could consider that complaint. 

Immigration – Variation of leave to remain – Permission to appeal. Court of Session: Refusing an application for permission to appeal against a decision of the Upper Tribunal (UT) by four family members, whose application for variation of their leave to remain was refused by the Home Secretary and whose appeal against that decision was refused by the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) and the UT, the court held that neither the FTT nor the UT erred in relation to the applicants' appeals in any way that was material and there was no question of the proposed appeal having strong prospects of success. 

Estoppel – Proprietary estoppel. The proceedings concerned a dispute between members of a family as to the beneficial ownership of a farm. Under wills made by the deceased father of the claimant in 1999, the farm was left on trust for the claimant subject to certain conditions. The claimant, relying on proprietary estoppel, contended that that was contrary to oral promises, made by his father and assented to by his mother, that he would inherit the farm. The Chancery Division held that the claimant had established a proprietary estoppel such that it would be unconscionable to deny the claimant an equity in the farm. However, the equity did not extend to a bungalow on the farm, which had been occupied by the claimant's siblings and mother. 

European Union – Community institutions. The General Court of the European Union granted the applicant's request for annulment of the decision of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) to refuse him access to certain documents. The General Court decided that Cedefop had erred in law by illegally rejecting the applicant's request for access to those documents on the basis of the exceptions under art 4(1)(b) and art 4(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 (regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents).