Latest Cases

Public procurement – Public contract. The Technology and Construction Court held in favour of the claimant companies (together, Eurotunnel) in a dispute concerning the correct trial for a tendering dispute. Eurotunnel wanted to have the trial before 'Brexit day', namely 29 March 2019, while the defendant Secretary of State for Transport wanted the trial to commence in April. The court held that the matters being considered were very important public interest matters, and that, given that Eurotunnel had already served its witness statements, there was no reason why the trial could not begin on the first day of March.

Immigration – Asylum seeker. The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (the UT) was to determine afresh the appellant Sri Lankan national's appeal against the refusal of asylum. The claim was based on alleged detention and torture by the Sri Lankan authorities. The Supreme Court held that, in the light of the serious lack of the appellant's credibility in several other areas of his evidence, the UT had been correct to address the possibility of wounding self-inflicted by proxy. However, in assessing the strength of the possibility, it had failed to weigh certain important matters. Further, the expert's handling of the evidence had been in accordance with the 1999 'Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment', known as the 'Istanbul Protocol'.

Sentence – Sexual offences prevention order. The sexual offences prevention order imposed on the defendant following his conviction for 12 sexual offences had failed to comply with R v Smith ([2012] 1 All ER 451), which identified as a principle of broad application that a blanket prohibition on computer use or internet access was not permissible. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in partially allowing the appeal, held that the failure to take into account the principles in Smith had been an error which had to be corrected.

Environment – Environmental health officer. The first and fifth appellants succeeded in their appeals by way of case stated against their convictions for offences, under s 110(1) of the Environment Act 1995, of intentionally obstructing officers of the Environment Agency in the exercise of powers to enforce provisions of the Act designed to prevent pollution. However, the Divisional Court, having set out the proper construction of ss 108 and 110, dismissed the appeals of the second to fourth appellants.

European Union – Freedom of establishment. Article 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be interpreted as precluding tender specifications governing the conditions to which a reprivatisation process of an air carrier company was subject from including a requirement that the purchaser of those shares had to ensure that the existing national hub was maintained and developed. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the validity of a decision setting out certain conditions in the tender specifications for the process of indirectly reprivatising Transportes Aéreos Portugueses SA.

Patent – Infringement. The Chancery Division made rulings in a case concerning products used to treat plaque psiorasis and psoriatic arthritis in adults. The court held that, among other things, the claimant company's proposed amendments to the claims were allowable, subject to some minor exceptions. Claims 1, 2, 13, 14 and 15 of the patent were obvious over two pieces of prior art, as were claims 12, 20 and 22, in so far as they were directed to the condition RA, a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease that mainly affected the small joints of the body.

Legal adviser – Reserved legal activities. The claimant Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales's claim for judicial review had to be dismissed in so far as it challenged the defendant Lord Chancellor's decision not to make orders designating it as an approved regulator and licensing authority under the Legal Services Act 2007 in relation to the exercise of rights of audience, the conduct of litigation, reserved instrument activities and notarial activities. However, the Divisional Court quashed his decision in so far as it concerned the administration of oaths and remitted it to the Lord Chancellor for reconsideration.

Bankruptcy – Petition. Although the district judge had erred in making a retrospective order for substituted service of a bankruptcy petition issued by the first respondent wife, all the indications were that the appellant husband had been deliberately seeking to evade service. Accordingly, the Chancery Division, save as regards setting aside the order for substituted service, dismissed the husband's appeal against the bankruptcy order arising from non-payment of costs orders made against him in divorce proceedings.

Negligence – Duty to take care. The appellant local authority's appeal against a decision awarding damages to the respondent, its former employee, concerning a knee injury he had suffered after being repeatedly kicked by a student at school, was dismissed. The Queen's Bench Division held that the judge had been entitled to find that the respondent had been repeatedly kicked by the student and that there had been a breach of duty, because of another teacher's failure to intervene to prevent the student repeatedly kicking C. The court further ruled that the judge had been right to implicitly find that causation had been established.

Negligence – Duty to take care. The claimant, a former factory worker, successfully appealed against the dismissal of his claim for damages for noise induced deafness, allegedly suffered in the course of his employment. The claimant had alleged that his injuries had been caused by the negligence and/or breach of statutory duty of the defendants and/or their servants or agents, including by failing to carry out noise surveys at the relevant time, contrary to the Noise at Work Regulations 1989, SI 1989/1790. The Queen's Bench Division ruled, among other things, that the judge ought to have concluded that the second defendant had been under a duty to conduct noise surveys from 1970, particularly following the relevant guidance by the Ministry of Labour. It further held that had the judge judged the claimant's evidence benevolently, and the second defendant's evidence critically, he would have found the latter to have tortuously exposed the claimant to noise over the relevant period.