A Smell By Any Other Name
A case brought by a group of residents who live near a tip was recently heard by the Court of Appeal. The residents complained that the smell of the tip was a nuisance that blighted the everyday enjoyment of their…
Bond or Guarantee?
The High Court has refused summary judgment in a claim to enforce a document which the claimant argued was a performance bond. The court held that the defendant had an arguable case that the document was a guarantee, not a…
Chancel Repair Liability: Registration
A recent case in which the owners of a farm faced ruin because their property was saddled with an ancient responsibility to maintain the local church received a great deal of publicity, and has prompted a change in the applicable…
First to File Gains Trade Mark
When an agricultural equipment manufacturer found that another company had registered a Community Trade Mark (CTM) that was similar to one of its own brand names, it opposed the registration, arguing that the company that had registered it had only…
Fatherhood and Child Contact
The Court of Appeal recently ruled in a case which asked whether fatherhood is sufficient to warrant contact with a child and decided that the answer is ‘no’. The case was unusual. It involved a married couple who wanted to…
Flood Insurance Ending
In 2009, the Government and the Association of British Insurers entered into an agreement, the Statement of Principles on the Provision of Flood Insurance, which committed home insurance providers to making flood insurance as widely available as possible. This agreement…
Health and safety: parent company liable
Businesses with subsidiaries should be notified of the first reported case in which a parent company was found liable to an employee of its subsidiary on tort law principles. The Court of Appeal held that the parent company owed a…
Revised Guidance for Service Companies
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have published new guidance intended to help personal service companies determine their correct employment status. HMRC will take a risk-based approach to consider how likely it is that they need to check whether IR35 applies…
Further Clarity on Optical Trade Mark Case
A recent case dealt with the vexed question of how similar one’s advertising can be to the trade marks of another company before this constitutes an infringement of its intellectual property rights. When supermarket giant ASDA sought to break into…
Company convicted of manslaughter
A Northern Irish company has been prosecuted under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007) and fined £187,500, plus £13,000 costs, over the death of an employee. The employee was killed after being hit by…