Latest Cases

Divorce – Financial provision. On the wife's application for enforcement of a maintenance agreement, the judge had made orders regarding the payment of interim periodical payments and arrears of maintenance. He subsequently re-characterised that order as a 'scheduled court directed part payment of the outstanding lump sum' and ordered that the husband be allowed only to make payment to his solicitor if he paid a corresponding sum on each occasion to the wife. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the husband's appeal on the ground that the judge had not had the jurisdiction to have made the orders that he had. 

Telecommunications – Regulatory bodies. The proceedings concerned the legality of the imposition of fines upon premium rate services (PRS) providers. An adjudication tribunal had found that the first defendant provider had breached a code of practice, approved under the Communications Act 2003 and had imposed a fine and administrative charges. The claimant enforcement authority applied for summary judgment to recover the fine and charges from the first defendant. The Chancery Division, in granting the application, held that OFCOM had lawfully delegated to the claimant all powers of enforcement of the code and that, applying the law to the facts, the first defendant had no real prospect of successfully defending the claim. 

Immigration – Unlawful detention – Damages. Court of Session: Refusing a reclaiming motion in judicial review proceedings in which a failed asylum seeker sought damages for wrongful detention, the court held that the Lord Ordinary had not erred in concluding that the petitioner was unlawfully detained for a period of one year and that an award of £36,000 would afford her appropriate compensation. 

Negligence – Duty of care. The issue in the first claim whether the defendant, in acting an the claimants' investment fund manager, had acted in breach of fiduciary duty, in breach of contract, and negligently. In the second claim, the issue was whether the defendant chief executive officer of the defendant in the first claim had dishonestly assisted it to breach its fiduciary duties and induced its breaches of contract. The Commercial Court held that the claimants in both claims were entitled to remedies against both defendants. 

European Union – Patent. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling that art 6(2)(c) of Directive (EC) 98/44 of the European Parliament and of the Council (on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions) should be interpreted as meaning that an unfertilised human ovum whose division and further development had been stimulated by parthenogenesis did not constitute a 'human embryo', within the meaning of that provision, if, in the light of current scientific knowledge, that ovum did not, in itself, have the inherent capacity of developing into a human being, that being a matter for the national court to determine. 

Personal injury – Occupiers' liability – Common law duty of care – Vicarious liability. Court of Session: Granting decree of absolvitor in an action by a pursuer who was injured after slipping and falling and who maintained that the fall resulted from picking up diesel on her motor cycle boots in the defenders' car park, the court held that there had not been a breach of the Occupiers Liability (Scotland) Act 1960, or of a common law duty of care, and the defenders' hotel manageress had not failed in her duty of care. 

European Union – Employment. The Court of Justice of the European gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that Council Directive (EC) 2000/78 should be interpreted as meaning that the obesity of a worker constituted a 'disability' within the meaning of that directive where it entailed a limitation resulting in particular from long-term physical, mental or psychological impairments which in interaction with various barriers could hinder the full and effective participation of the person concerned in professional life on an equal basis with other workers. It was for the national court to determine whether those conditions were met. 

Boundary – Disputed land. The proceedings concerned a boundary dispute, in which the claimants alleged, inter alia, that the variation of the boundary between their property and the defendant's property had been accomplished by an informal agreement and, alternatively, that they and their predecessors in title were in adverse possession of the disputed land. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held, inter alia, that the judge had been wrong to have found adverse possession of the disputed land. The result of that conclusion, coupled with the inapplicability of the doctrine in Neilson v Poole([1969] 20 P&CR 909) as to boundary agreements, meant that the appeal would be allowed on that point. 

Contract – Condition. Following early termination by the claimant of an ISDA Master Agreement, the claimant sought summary judgment on its claim for money said to be owed. The application was dismissed due to the claimant's failure to provide the defendants with sufficient details of how the sum claimed had been calculated. The claimant provided further calculations, more than two years after termination of the agreement, and again applied for summary judgment. The Commercial Court allowed the application as, on the proper construction of cl 6(d) of the ISDA Master Agreement, the second notification, although late, had been effective and so the sums owed had been payable under that clause. 

Shipping – Charterparty. The Commercial Court considered, where a time charterparty provided for the claimant charterers to give notice or redelivery, what the correct approach was to damages where redelivery took place with insufficient notice. It made findings regarding the appropriate sum to represent loss suffered by the defendant owners of a vessel as a result of short notice given.