Latest Cases

European Union – Consumer protection. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling deciding that contact lenses that were marketed purely to alter the user's appearance, rather than to remedy a defect, did not fall within the definition of 'cosmetic product' in art 2(1)(a) of Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) 1223/2009 despite the fact that the outer packaging declared that the product was subject to the 'EU Cosmetics Directive'. 

Minor – Removal outside jurisdiction. The Family Division dismissed the applicant mother's application for summary return to France of her son, T, whom the respondent father had removed from the jurisdiction and taken to England. It held that, in the circumstances, and given T's objections, it would be inappropriate to return T to France under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980. 

Partnership – Liability of new partners. Court of Session: In an action which the liquidator of a company raised against a firm of solicitors and eight of its partners, contending that the company was defrauded of £90m and alleging that the defenders' dishonestly assisted a director in committing a breach of his fiduciary duties, the court held that there were no averments that would allow the liquidator to lead evidence that three of the defenders, either expressly or tacitly, agreed to take over the existing liabilities of the previous firm and it dismissed the case so far as laid against them; it also refused to allow receipt of a minute of amendment seeking to add five further current and former partners of the firm as defenders, and refused to order the defenders to answer questions about the insurance position. 

Will – Testator. The Chancery Division dismissed the claimant's challenge to his mother's will, in which she left him a very small percentage of her estate. The court held that the testatrix had, among other things, possessed testamentary capacity when she had made the will and had not been suffering from insane delusions. 

European Union – State aid. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that art 14 of Council Regulation (EC) 659/1999 and arts 11 and 13 of Commission Regulation (EC) 794/2004 did not preclude national legislation, such as that at issue in the present proceedings, which, by means of a reference to Regulation 794/2004, provided for the application of compound interest to the recovery of state aid, even though the decision declaring that aid incompatible with the common market and ordering its recovery had been adopted and notified to the member state concerned before that Regulation had entered into force. 

Family proceedings – Orders in family proceedings. A local authority applied for a care order in respect of a child in circumstances where the parents' first child had died. While the death had been classified as sudden infant death syndrome, concerns had been raised regarding possible abuse. The Family Court, following a fact-finding hearing, dismissed the authority's application as the threshold test under s 31 of the Children Act 1989 had not been passed on the balance of probabilities and there was no likelihood that the new child would suffer significant harm in the parents' care. 

Freedom of information – Exempt information. The Office of the Information Commissioner (ICO) had, during the course of a raid, collected a list of names of journalists who had obtained information through an investigator. The respondent had sought disclosure of those names under a Freedom of Information request. The ICO refused the request, and that was upheld by the Information Commissioner. The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) determined that some of the names should be disclosed. The Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) upheld the FTT's decision, as there had been no error of law in its decision that the information in issue was not 'sensitive personal data' within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 and that its disclosure was for a legitimate purpose, rather than an unwarranted intrusion into the journalists' privacy rights. 

Family proceedings – Divorce. The Family Division adjourned the wife's claims for a lump sum and for any adjustment of property order and ordered that the husband was to pay the wife maintenance pending suit until decree absolute and, thereafter, periodical payments at the annual rate of £120,000 per annum. Further, in the circumstances, the husband would be ordered to pay all of the wife's costs of and incidental to all proceedings between them in relation to financial matters heard on and since May 2013, to include costs on any occasion reserved, but to exclude all costs in relation to which it had already been ordered that there be no order, such costs (if not agreed) to be subject to detailed assessment on the indemnity basis. 

Housing – Local authority houses. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, dismissed the appellant's appeal against the dismissal of his appeal, under s 204 of the Housing Act 1996 (the 1996 Act), from the decision by a reviewing officer of the defendant local authority that the accommodation provided for him was suitable within the meaning of s 210 of the 1996 Act. Among other things, it rejected the appellant's argument that s 210(1) of the 1996 Act imposed upon the authority a duty to carry out an inspection and assessment under s 4 of the Housing Act 2004 before making its decision on suitability. 

European Union – Taxation. The Court of Justice gave a preliminary ruling, holding that art 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union was to be interpreted as preluding rules of a member state that governed a tax integration regime under which a tax-integrated parent company was entitled to neutralisation regarding the add-back of a proportion of costs and expenses, fixed at 5% of the net amount of the dividends received by it from tax-integrated resident companies, when such neutralisation was refused to it under those rules regarding the dividends distributed to it from subsidiaries located in another member state, which, had they been resident, would have been eligible in practice if they so had elected.