Latest Cases

Immigration – Asylum – Leave to appeal. Court of Session: Refusing an application for leave to appeal by a Sri Lankan asylum seeker, whose claim was rejected by the First Tier Tribunal and whose appeal was dismissed by the Upper Tribunal, the court concluded that there was not a strongly arguable error of law in the case and the application did not therefore meet the second appeals test. 

Declaration – Discretion to grant. The claimant and the defendant were father and son. The claimant sought the return of the cars which he maintained were and always had been, his property. The defendant came before the court seeking a declaration that the four vintage cars in his possession were in fact his property. The Queen's Bench Division held that the cars were and remained the property of the claimant. 

Pension – Pension scheme. The claimant challenged the legality of, and sought to set aside, arrangements granting the defendant trustee a first fixed equitable charge over gilts on the basis that the arrangements had been entered into in contravention of s 320 of the Companies Act 1985. The Chancery Division, in dismissing the application, held that the scheme was not voidable under s 320 of the Act, as the directors were contingent beneficiaries, and the trustee had been acting in its capacity as trustee of a pension scheme and had not been a 'connected person'. Further, the trustee was entitled to indemnification and interest concerning the costs of the proceedings. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by Formula One Licensing BV (Formula One) against the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs), concerning opposition proceedings between Formula One and Idea Marketing SA regarding the acquisition by the latter company of an international registration designating the European Community in respect of the word mark 'F1H2O'. 

Value Added Tax – Supply of goods or services. The claimant erroneously paid approximately £4m VAT to the interested party (QCL), which it paid to the defendant Revenue and Customs Commissioners (the Revenue). The claimant contended that the Revenue should refuse to repay QCL, which subsequently went into administration, unless it undertook to reimburse it in full, but the Revenue refused and the claimant sought judicial review. The Administrative Court, in allowing the application, held that Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH v Finance Minister (Case C-35/05) ([2007] All ER (D) 266 (Mar)) applied, such that the claimant was entitled to recover the mistakenly paid VAT directly from the Revenue. 

Mistake – Rectification. Two properties were placed in trust for the benefit of the claimant. Her father loaned her money to purchase one of the properties. The claimant made a settlement by which she would pay the loan back to her father. The solicitor failed to inform her of the negative effects of doing so. On learning of the negative effects, she sought to have the settlement set aside, on the grounds of equitable mistake. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Commissioners resisted the application. The Chancery Division held that, applying settled law, it was appropriate for the settlement to be set aside. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. The mother was the sole carer of a child who was born in 2012. In 2014, the child suffered injuries, which the medical evidence attributed to abuse. The local authority applied for care and placement orders. The Family Division conducted a fact-finding hearing and ruled that the child's injuries had been inflicted deliberately by her mother, that the threshold for orders had been met, both by the suffering of significant harm and by the clear risk of repetition. Care and placement orders were granted to allow the authority to implement a plan in respect of the child. 

Human rights – Right to respect for private and family life. The claimant had a high public profile. The defendant, her boyfriend, had threatened to expose her adulterous relationship with a married man, who was also said to be a very high profile public figure. The claimant applied, without notice, for an interim injunction against the defendant, or for interim non-disclosure orders to restrain him from publishing pictures from her journal or other such private information about the affair. The Chancery Division, in granting the orders sought, held that it was satisfied on the evidence that the information in question was clearly private and personal information in relation to which the claimant had had a reasonable expectation of privacy and confidentiality. The claimant's right to respect for her private life clearly weighed more heavily in the balance than the defendant's desire to exercise any freedom of expression in publishing that private life. 

Patent – Practice. The claimant challenged the validity of two patents both entitled 'Process for the preparation of mixtures of trifluoroacetyl GA using purified hydrobromic acid'. The patents belonged to the defendant and related to glatiramer acetate which was used for the treatment of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. The attack on the validity of all the claims was rejected, save that certain of the claims were invalid for added matter. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The appellant appealed against orders for his extradition to Germany to face trial for six offences of fraud, allegedly committed in 2007. The Administrative Court, in dismissing the appeal, held that the evidence had not led to a conclusion that the judicial authority's delay had been culpable and the judge had been entitled to conclude that extradition would not be oppressive. Further, there was no discernible error of law in the judge's finding that the appellant's extradition would not constitute a disproportionate interference with his and his family's right to family life, in particular, as a European Supervision Order was not available.