A company which flouted a council enforcement notice, requiring it to demolish an ‘ugly and imposing’ extension to a delicatessen after it was built without planning permission, has paid a heavy price for its ‘obdurate disobedience’. The company had been granted permission for a single-storey extension in 2002. However, it erected a two-storey building...
Company Counts $4 Million Cost of Disastrous Currency Swaps
A company which engaged in disastrous currency swaps with an investment bank is facing up to a bill for more than $4 million after the High Court ruled that it could not escape liability by reason of the bank’s delay in calculating the sum due. The bank terminated the swap agreements after the company failed to meet margin calls. The latter did not dispute...
Judge Scotches Rural Housing Development Plans
In a clear indication that housing developers are not having it all their own way, preservation of open countryside prevailed as the High Court scotched plans for a residential development in rural Nottinghamshire – despite the acknowledged inadequacy of the area’s supply of housing land. The proposal was for eight new homes on land to the rear of a country...
Medical Professionals and Conscientious Objection
Two devoutly Roman Catholic midwives who refused to take even supervisory roles in the termination of pregnancies have failed to convince the Supreme Court that their NHS employer trampled on their right to conscientiously object. The women pointed to the terms of the Abortion Act 1967, which gives all medical professionals the right to choose not to...
Benefit Cheats Receive Judgment of Solomon
A former couple, who for over a decade successfully defrauded the benefits system by pretending that they were separated – and ended up battling it out in court over ownership of their family home after their relationship really did end in acrimony – have received a judgment of Solomon from the Court of Appeal. With her boyfriend’s assistance, the woman...