Latest Cases

Charging order – Land. The Chancery Division dismissed the appellants' appeal against the imposition of a charging order made over their property and the county court judge's refusal to grant them relief from sanctions. The court held that the judge had been fully justified in making the orders that it had. 

Animal – Protection. The Administrative Court allowed the claimant's application for judicial review of Natural England's decision, refusing him a licence to kill buzzards, and destroy four nests and any eggs in them. The decision had been based on an undisclosed policy, had taken account of an irrelevant consideration, and ad been inconsistent and unreasonable. 

Practice – Summary judgment. The Technology and Construction Court allowed the claimants' application for summary judgment in a dispute about the cost of extra work to a defective house, where there had been a compelling agreement between the claimants and the defendant builders. 

Immigration – Leave to enter. The Supreme Court held, among other things, that the rule requiring a foreign spouse or partner of a British citizen or a person settled in the United Kingdom to pass a test of competence in the English language before coming to live in the UK was not an unjustified interference with rights under art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Limitation of actions – Prescription. Court of Session: Granting decree of absolvitor in an action in which a company in liquidation sued a firm of solicitors for damages for loss caused by facilitation of fraud, averring that it had instructed the defenders to act in relation to proposed loans to four Gibraltar companies and that £7.3m had been paid out of the defenders' client account to third parties and not to the four companies, the court rejected the defenders' contention that the pursuer had failed relevantly to aver circumstances in which it had sustained any loss as a consequence of anything they had done, but held that the pursuer had failed to aver and prove circumstances entitling it to protection from prescription under s 6(4) or s 11(3) of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973. 

Income tax – Emoluments – Tax avoidance scheme. Court of Session: Allowing an appeal by the Advocate General, representing HM Revenue and Customs, the court held that a scheme the respondent companies had entered into, involving payments to various trusts and application of the monies so paid, which was designed to avoid payment of income tax and National Insurance contributions in respect of their employees, amounted to a mere redirection of earnings which did not remove the liability of employees to income tax. 

Prison – Prisoner. The Administrative Court dismissed the claimant's judicial review proceedings, alleging that his continued detention, despite a Parole Board direction for his conditional release, was a result of a breach by the defendants of statutory and other public law duties. The delay was not in breach of the defendants' statutory duties or discriminatory. 

Contempt of court – Committal. The Queen's Bench Division held that the claimant was not entitled to compensation under art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights despite the decision of the Court of Appeal Civil Division that the trial judge's decision to committ and sentence to prison for contempt of court had been wrong. 

Employment – Dismissal. The Privy Council allowed the appellant's appeal against an order of the Supreme Court of Mauritius, by which the appellant was ordered to pay to the respondent a sum in the form of wages in lieu of notice and a severance allowance at the normal rate. Taken together, the factors which had informed the degree of blameworthiness of the respondent's misconduct rendered the breach of his duty of non-competition so fundamental that, even when placed in the context of his long unblemished record, it could not reasonably be regarded as other than 'faute grave'. 

Practice – Order. The Chancery Division held that the applicant's excessive and inexcusabe delay in bringing an application to set aside an order made in proceedings in which he had not appeared was fatal to his application. He was not able to overcome the requirements of CPR 39.3(5).