Latest Cases

Contract – Repudiation. In a dispute involving little or no law and depending upon the resolution of disputed evidence, the claimant lawyer, banker and corporate financier sought payment for his management of trade finance and an initial public offering for the defendants. The Commercial Court, in allowing his claim, found that the parties had entered a binding oral agreement, which had been repudiated by the defendants. Accordingly, the claimant would be entitled to US$2.9m for the wrongly deducted salary retainer and the balance of his success fee as to trade finance, and for damages of US$15.5m in respect of the success fee for the initial public offering. 

Extradition – Extradition hearing. The appellant Spanish national was accused of involvement in a conspiracy to launder money which was the proceeds of crime. The respondent judicial authority sought her extradition pursuant to a European arrest warrant. The district judge ordered the appellant's extradition and she appealed. Allowing the appeal, the Administrative Court held that, in the circumstances, the opinions of an expert psychologist should not have been discounted in the way that they had been by the judge. In the instant case, the likely damage to two of the appellant's children had been such that the extradition of the appellant would have amounted to a disproportionate interference with their rights under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. KR and BR were a couple who embarked on a surrogacy arrangement following difficulties they encountered in conceiving. WT was born to an unmarried surrogate mother SA, following the transfer of an embryo created by KR's gametes and eggs from an anonymous donor. KR and BR requested the court to make a parental order in their favour in respect of WT pursuant to s 54 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. The Family Division following consideration of the s 54 criteria, made the parental order as sought. 

National health service – General medical services. The claimants ran a general practitioner medical practice. They issued proceedings against a primary care trust for breach of a contract, giving them health service body status, which had been varied. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the variation agreement had not needed to mention the claimants' health service body status, as the original agreement had. Accordingly, the variation agreement had been an NHS contract and the claimants had had no legally enforceable rights by virtue of s 9(5) of the National Health Service Act 2006. Further, it allowed the defendant's application to amend to seek a strike out of the proceedings, as the claimants would not be prejudiced and, on the basis of its findings, struck out the proceedings. 

Contract – Construction. The buyer and the seller entered into a transaction for the sale of a business. An element of deferred consideration was agreed between them. A dispute arose regarding the calculation of the deferred consideration amount. The Commercial Court, in a situation where there was no substantial dispute between the parties as to the principles, held, on the facts, that the buyer was entitled to a declaration regarding the investment amount and the seller on its counterclaim was entitled to a declaration regarding the on-sale of the business. 

Easement – Drainage. There was a dispute between the parties regarding a strip of land that lay between their neighbouring properties. The claimants also contended that they had the benefit of a drainage easement which connected an extension to their property with the drainage system installed beneath the defendants' property. The claimants were partly successful on the boundary dispute and wholly successful on the drainage dispute. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, following the production of fresh evidence by both parties, ordered that the boundary dispute be retried. The defendants' appeal on the drainage dispute was dismissed as the judge had been better placed to determine the issue and there was no basis upon which to depart from his order. Consequential costs orders were made. 

Discrimination – Nationality, on the grounds of. The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the employment tribunal (the tribunal) had not erred in holding to be justified an indirectly discriminatory criterion for entry to the two-year post graduate Foundation Programme for medical students. The tribunal had not erred in concluding that the criterion had been a reasonably necessary and proportionate way of achieving legitimate aims and so the indirect discrimination on grounds related to nationality had been justified in both domestic and European Union law. 

Civil procedure – Summary decree: Sheriff Court: Refusing an apppeal in an action for payment of solicitors' fees against a sheriff's interlocutor granting a motion for summary decree dismissing defender's counterclaim, the court held that the sheriff had been correct to conclude that the counterclaim had no real of prospect of success and summary decree dismissing it was the just and correct disposal. 

Immigration – Asylum – Fresh claim. Court of Session: Refusing a judicial review petition in which a failed Iraqi asylum seeker challenged a decision that his further submissions did not give rise to a fresh claim, the court held that the petitioner had failed to discharge the onus upon him to produce positive evidence demonstrating on the balance of probabilities that he could not return to Iraq and the respondent had not erred in law in applying the policy described in her decision letter that factors affecting the practicality of return, such as the difficulty of obtaining a travel document, should not be taken into account when considering the merits of an asylum or human rights claim. 

Extradition – Extradition order. The defendant Secretary of State ordered the claimant British national's extradition to the interested party United States of America to stand trial for alleged offences. The claimant was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia and detained in a psychiatric hospital. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that, in view of the severity of the claimant's mental condition, there would be a violation of his rights under art 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights if he was extradited. On the basis of further information provided by the US, the Secretary of State decided not to withdraw the extradition order. The claimant sought judicial review of that decision. Allowing the application, the Administrative Court held that the further information had added nothing material to the information which the Strasbourg court had had, so that it had been impermissible to depart from its conclusion that there would be a violation of art 3 of the Convention if the claimant was extradited to the US.