Latest Cases

Conflict of laws – Jurisdiction. The Commercial Court granted the claimant, Toyota Tsusho Sugar Trading Ltd, a declaration that an English arbitration tribunal had substantive jurisdiction over any dispute between Toyota and the defendant, arising out of or in connection with a contract for the sale of sugar by Toyota to the defendant. 

Damages – Assessment. The defendants were members of the claimant organisation, which represented and provided services to the removal and storage industry. When their membership lapsed, they failed to remove comments suggesting that they were still members. The claimant obtained summary judgment against the defendants. The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court made rulings on the basis by which damages were to be awarded. 

Company – Winding up. The Supreme Court of Bermuda made an order winding up a company, SICL. SICL's former auditors, PwC, applied for the order to be lifted. The liquidators of SCIL challenged, among other things, PwC's entitlement to do so. The Privy Council allowed PwC's application, and held that, among other things, since PwC had the right to be added as a party to the petition, it followed that, unless there were good reasons to the contrary, it was entitled to raise the question whether the Supreme Court had jurisdiction to make the winding up order, but also to raise the issue on appeal. 

Power of attorney – Enduring power of attorney. The proceedings concerned the validity of certain provisions in M's lasting powers of attorneys (LPA), which raised the issue of whether the donor of an LPA could appoint more than one attorney to act jointly with survivorship, by expressly re-appointing the continuing attorney or attorneys. The Court of Protection held that the safest way to achieve the effect of joint attorneyship with survivorship would be for the donor to execute two LPAs: the first having appointed the attorneys to act jointly, and the second having appointed them to act jointly and severally, with a condition that the second LPA would come into operation when the first LPA failed for any reason. 

Criminal law – Trial. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in dismissing the defendant dentist's appeal against conviction for the sexual assault of a patient, held that, in nearly every respect no complaint could be made about the summing up and overall it had been entirely fair. 

Town and country planning – Permission for development. The claimant sought judicial review of the defendant local planning authority's grant of planning permission to erect a wind turbine to the interested party. The Administrative Court, in allowing the application, held that the authority had not made information available to allow effective participation in democratic decision-making and could not demonstrate that it would inevitably have come to the same conclusion. Further, the authority had been wrong to assume that there had been a financial involvement, allowing a higher noise level. 

European Union – Employment. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that cl 4.2 of the Framework Agreement on part-time work, annexed to Council Directive (EC) 97/81 (concerning the framework agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC, as amended by Council Directive (EC) 98/23), should be interpreted as meaning that the principle pro rata temporis applied to the calculation of the amount of a dependent child allowance paid by an employer to a part-time worker pursuant to a collective agreement such as that applicable to the employees of Austrian banks and bankers. 

Practice – Civil litigation. The proceedings concerned an appeal against the master's refusal to grant relief from sanction by extending time to serve particulars of claim. At the time the master considered the matter, he had relied solely on the guidance in Mitchell v News Group Newspapers Ltd([2014] 2 All ER 430) (Mitchell), as the judgment in Denton v White(154 ConLR 1) (Denton) had not yet been handed down. The Queen's Bench Division, in dismissing the claimant's appeal, held that the master had applied the Mitchell guidance correctly and his decision stood up to scrutiny, even when studied alongside the later, amplified, Denton guidance. 

Public procurement – Public contracts. In a public procurement case relating to a proposed single supplier framework agreement for media planning and buying services, the claimant, as the losing tenderer issued proceedings within 30 days of being informed of its failure to win contract, under the Public Contract Regulations. That led to a suspension on the placing of the contract with the successful tenderer. The defendant as contracting authority applied to lift the statutory suspension so that it could place the contract with the successful tenderer. The Technology and Construction Court lifted the suspension as it found that there was no serious issue to be tried. 

Will – Family provision. The claimant brought a claim in respect of her deceased mother's estate, after she was excluded from her mother's will. The issue was whether she had a claim on the basis of proprietary estoppel or under the under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The Chancery Division, in dismissing the claim, held that, on the facts, any mention of inheritance had not been intended to be taken seriously or been such that might reasonably have been expected to have been relied on by the claimant. Further, taking into account all the factors under s 3 of the Act, the value judgment was that the claimant's conduct outweighed all of the factors in her favour and her claim under the act had to fail.