Latest Cases

Costs – Order for costs. The claimant bank alleged that a Ukrainian businessman, T, had assisted its former chairman, Mr Ablyazov in putting assets defrauded from the bank, out of its reach. The bank applied to vary an order that the costs of compliance by T with a Norwich Pharmacal disclosure order be paid by the bank, to provide that T should pay those costs himself. The Chancery Division, allowing the application in part, held that it was not only where a claimant established at a trial that a Norwich Pharmacal respondent was implicated in the defendant's wrongdoing that it was appropriate to depart from the normal order in relation to costs. T was entitled to recover 25% of the costs of preparing affidavits. However, he was ordered to pay the bank's costs of a cross-examination exercise. 

European Union – Trade marks. The General Court of the European Union dismissed the action brought by The Hut.com Ltd (The Hut), established in the United Kingdom, seeking annulment of a decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) relating to opposition proceedings between Intersport France and The Hut concerning the application by The Hut for registration of the word sign 'THE HUT' as a Community trade mark. 

Corporation tax – Computation of profits. The taxpayer sought to deduct payments made to a rugby club from computation of its profits for corporation tax purposes. The First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) and the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) upheld the decision of Revenue and Customs Commissioners to disallow the deductions and found that the payments were not 'wholly and exclusively laid out or expended for the purposes of the trade', pursuant to s 74(1) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the taxpayer's appeal, held that, for the purposes of s 74(1)(a) of the Act, the courts had never wavered from the proposition that the business purpose had to be the sole purpose. There was no warrant for distinguishing between the two purposes by assessing one as being intermediate or subordinate to the other. 

Employment – Procedure. The employment tribunal had recused itself after it had received information from a third party that was prejudicial principally to one party in the case. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), in dismissing the employees appeal against the tribunal's decision to recuse itself, held that the tribunal's decision had been right. Of central importance was having a fair trial before a tribunal that both was and appeared to be impartial. The EAT gave guidance as to the approach tribunals should take if approached by a third party about the merits of a case. 

Practice – Claim. The claimant company brought a claim against the defendants, including its former directors, for damages or compensation by way of indemnity against any liability that might be established against it in proceedings brought against it in Florida. The first defendant, who previously lived in Switzerland but was resident in London contended that the claim should be dismissed on the grounds that no steps to serve it had been taken within the period of four months allowed by CPR 7.5(1). The Chancery Division, in granting the declaration, held that the claim form had not been served within the time limit imposed by CPR 7.5 and that an order for the extension of time under 7.6(3) would not be made as the claimant had not shown that it had taken all reasonable steps to comply with CPR 7.5. 

Criminal law – Suicide. The Supreme Court considered two appeals together, concerning three appellants who had suffered from permanent and catastrophic physical disabilities and wished to die at the time of their choosing. However, they were not physically capable of ending their own life unaided. The Court considered, amongst other things, whether s 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 infringed the appellants' rights under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Practice – Fast track. A subrogated claim had been issued by a care hire company against an insurance company following a road traffic accident. The claimant sought to have the claim allocated to the fast track where the damages claimed were above £5,000. The defendant admitted damages in a sum under £3,000, meaning that the disputed sum was under £4,000. The district judge allocated the claim to the small claims track and entered judgment in favour of the claimant in the admitted sum. The claimant's appeal against the allocation was dismissed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the claimant's appeal. There had been an unqualified admission by the defendant and judgment had been entered in that sum and accepted by the defendant. The sum disputed had been less than £5,000 and so the appropriate case allocation had been to the small claim track. 

Proceeds of crime – Restraint order. The applicants appealed against a judge's refusal to discharge and vary ex parte orders, restraining them from dealing with property said to be worth more than £1m, under s 41 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, discharged the orders against the third and fourth defendant companies, as there was no reasonable cause to believe that they had been laundering money. It further imposed a cap of £720,000 on the orders against the first and second applicants, as there was no realistic possibility that a confiscation order would follow in excess of that sum. 

Warrant – Search warrant. The claimant challenged the lawfulness of a search warrant issued by the defendant magistrates court and executed on his home and business premises. The Divisional Court, in allowing the application, held that the warrant had not identified, as far as had been practicable, the articles to be sought in the search and that the information in the warrant had been deficient. Accordingly, it was quashed, and declarations as to the unlawfulness of the warrant and the search were made. 

Employment tribunal – Procedure. The employee issued a claim in the employment tribunal that she had been subjected to race discrimination. Her claim was dismissed as being out of time. She issued a second claim which repeated the same allegations but also included a complaint of conduct that extended over a period. The claim was struck out as being an abuse of process as, the employment judge determined, those new complaints had occurred before she had issued her first claim and, had she considered that conduct to be race discrimination, she would have included the complaints in her first claim. That decision was affirmed by the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, upheld the decision to dismiss the claim for abuse of process for the reasons given by the employment judge.