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Our lawyers contribute regularly to industry and legal journals in addition to writing legal briefings, newsletters and case reports for clients and contacts. All of our articles are free to read and download here.
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Court declares that the Environment Agency must take action to reduce emissions
November 2021We have been instructed in many cases by landfill site operators, where local communities expressed dissatisfaction with the Environment Agency’s regulation of a landfill site. Our experience is that the EA is rarely called to account. However, a recent case concerning a landfill site in Staffordshire suggest that Regulators are set to face closer scrutiny… Read More >
Cladding Claim avoids strike out
November 2021CASE REPORT: Crest Nicholson Operations Ltd & Anor v Grafik Architects Ltd & Anor [2021] EWHC 2948 (TCC) A recent unsuccessful application for strike out has shed light on the Court’s attitude towards the threshold for strike out in terms of lack of particularisation of a claim. The judgment made specific reference to this threshold… Read More >
Case Report: BASF Corporation & Ors v Carpmaels and Ransford
November 2021The claimants in this case claimed to have suffered US$1.2bn in lost profits from the defendant’s accepted failure to file an appeal in time against a patent revocation. In an interesting judgment dated 29 October, Mr Justice Adam Johnson held that the claimants failed to establish that a duty of care was owed to those… Read More >
MEDIATION – A MANDATORY STEP?
November 2021Earlier this year, on the 25th anniversary of Lord Woolf’s landmark Access to Justice report, the Ministry of Justice issued a call for evidence seeking views from the judiciary, the legal profession, mediators and court users, and anyone who has experience of dispute resolution both within and outside the court system on how mediation can… Read More >
Reports from the courts – November 2021
November 2021Andrew Croft and Ben Spannuth of Beale & Company Solicitors LLP. One judgment reinforces the view that the courts will support ‘the natural and ordinary meaning of the words used’ commercial agreements; and in a Scottish case the judgment warns against ‘contrived or technical defences’ which the courts will ‘examine with a degree of scepticism’.… Read More >
Conflicts, Collusion, Conceptual Confusion: Integri Consultants Limited v Midlothian Council
November 2021Introduction In this case, Integri raised an action against Midlothian Council for payment of sums due under contracts for services. This judgment of the Scottish Court of Session, delivered on 20 October 2021, effectively dealt with an application to strike out part of the Defendant’s case. The Court essentially considered two questions – (1) whether… Read More >
Case Report: BDW Trading Ltd v URS Corporation Ltd and another [2021] EWHC 2796 (TCC)
November 2021In the recent preliminary issues hearing, BDW Trading Ltd v URS Corporation Ltd and another [2021] EWHC 2796 (TCC), the Court applied the test established by the Supreme Court in Khan v Meadows [2021] UKSC 21/Manchester Building Society v Grant Thornton [2021] UKSC 20 to conclude that the scope of a structural engineer’s duties extended… Read More >
Omissions, prices and spirit of mutual trust and cooperation: The Van Oord UK Limited v Dragados appeal
November 2021In this article, Andrew Croft and Kevin Henderson review the Scottish appellate court decision in Van Oord UK Limited v Dragados UK Limited[1] which considered when an instruction to omit works and give them to others will amount to breach of contract, how an instruction to omit works is assessed under the NEC, and the… Read More >
The Personal Injuries Guidelines: 6 months later
November 2021Introduction It is now over 6 months since the Personal Injuries Guidelines (“the Guidelines”) were commenced on 24 April 2021. The commencement of the Guidelines marked the culmination of a multi-year process of review, debate, consultation, and consideration as to the best and most appropriate means by which to seek to reduce and regularise… Read More >
Qualified One-Way Costs Shifting – Has the Balance Toppled?
November 2021The Supreme Court’s decision in Ho (Respondent) v Adelekun (Appellant) [2021] UKSC 43 overturns the earlier Court of Appeal decision, along with the decision in Howe v MIB [2017] EWCA Civ 932. It is now clear that where the Qualified One-Way Costs Shifting (QOCS) scheme applies to a claim, a defendant is unable to recover costs awarded in… Read More >