Latest Cases

European Union – Freedom of establishment. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that arts 49 and 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be interpreted as precluding a restrictive national provision, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which required a licensee to transfer, free of charge, on the cessation of business as a result of the expiry of the final term of the licence, the rights to use tangible and intangible assets which he owned and which constituted his network for the management and collection of bets, in so far as that restriction went beyond what was necessary to attain the objective actually pursued by that provision, which was for the referring court to verify. 

Practice – Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division continued a freezing injunction in the Lord Chancellor's favour against the respondent former managing director of a solicitors' firm. There seemed to be a real risk that any judgment would go unsatisfied because of the respondent's disposal of his assets, unless he was restrained from disposing of them. 

Personal Injury – Contaminated land – Negligence – Breach of statutory duty. Court of Session: In an action in which the pursuers averred that they had lived at addresses at a housing development which, before the site was developed, was contaminated with harmful chemicals, that they inhaled vapours given off by the chemicals, became ill and had suffered loss, the court held that the pursuers' common law case against the first defenders, the developers, was irrelevant; the pursuers had pled a relevant common law case against the second defenders (who they said acted throughout as environmental consultants), and were entitled to a proof of their averments; their case against the third defenders, their housing association landlords, fell to be dismissed; neither the first nor the second defenders were in breach of s 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990; and on the face of it the pursuers' right of action had expired but the case would be put out by order to give the pursuers' advisers the opportunity to consider the sufficiency of their pleadings as regards limitation. 

Mental health – Persons who lack capacity. The Court of Protection held that the parent of a 16 year old young person could not consent to their confinement which, absent a valid consent, would amount to a deprivation of that young person's liberty for the purposes of art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that it was for the local authority to protect a young person's right in such circumstances by applications to court to determine whether that young person was deprived to his liberty, is so, to seek authorisation for its continuance. 

Contract – Commercial contract. The Commercial Court construed a clause in the terms and conditions of mortgage-backed debentures (the Notes), which the claimant, a special purpose company in the Canary Wharf Group, had issued, pursuant to the securitisation of the Group's real estate portfolio. It held, in favour of the Noteholders and their trustee, that the redemption of Notes, using the proceeds of a pre-payment made by the borrower to obtain the release of security over a mortgaged property, pursuant to an inter company loan agreement, was an optional redemption under to the relevant terms and conditions, with the result that the claimant had to pay a premium. 

European Union – Customs and excise. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling deciding, among other things, that art 20(2) of Directive (EC) 2008/118 had to be interpreted as meaning that the movement of excise goods under a duty suspension arrangement ended, for the purpose of that provision, in a situation such as that in the main proceedings, when the consignee of those goods had found, on unloading in full from the means of transport carrying the goods in question, that there had been shortages of the goods in comparison with the amount which should have been delivered to him. 

Income tax – Employment. The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) (the tribunal) dismissed the appeal by the taxpayer employee against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber) which had rejected the taxpayer's challenge to an amendment to his tax return by the Revenue and Customs Commissioners (the Revenue). The tribunal decided, among other things that the payment made by the employer to the employee to settle his claim for unfair dismissal and age discrimination following the termination of his employment by reason of redundancy fell to be treated as employment income by ss 401 and 403 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 and was therefore chargeable to income tax under s 6 of that Act. 

Contract – Condition. The Queen's Bench Division, in a case in which the claimant was claiming damages for fraud, conspiracy, breach of contract held that there was insufficient evidence to support a case of deliberate fraud, conspiracy or deceit. However there had been a breach of contract for which damages were payable in the amount of any overcharging in the invoices. 

Heritable property – Title to share of house – Purported revocation of survivorship destination. Court of Session: In a dispute about the ownership of a house which was disponed to the pursuer and his late wife 'equally between them and to the survivor of them', the wife having then executed a codicil purporting to revoke the survivorship destination in favour of the pursuer and her executors having sought confirmation on an estate which included her one‑half joint pro indiviso share of the house and granted title to that share to first defender, the court held that the first defender had stated no relevant defence to the proposition that the terms of the codicil did not operate to revoke the special destination, his case under s 1 of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 was bound to fail, and he had failed to plead a relevant case of acquiescence. 

Criminal law – Conspiracy. The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, held that the defendants' convictions for conspiracy to convert criminal property, contrary to s 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and s 327(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, had not been unsafe. The judge's ruling that there had been a case to answer was correct. Both elements of the offences had been potentially present and there had been evidence upon which the defendants could have been convicted. However, the judge had fallen into a degree of error when having sentenced three of the defendants for their offending.