Construction contracts are often replete with detailed provisions in respect of time limits and payment schedules and that is one good reason why their administration is best entrusted to professionals. The point was strikingly made by one High Court case concerning a hospital refurbishment project.
Owners of listed buildings are entrusted to keep them in a reasonable state of repair and a failure to do so can have grave consequences. In one case, a woman whose 17th century manor house had fallen into a state of near-dereliction received just £125,000
Patents provide protection and encouragement to inventiveness and novelty, not to obvious developments of others’ ideas. The Court of Appeal made that point in finding invalid a patent in respect of wind turbine arrays. A company had patented a method of operating pitch-controlled wind turbines
One of the advantages of the English legal system is that even the most convincing lies tend to be exposed under rigorous forensic examination in the witness box. In one case that proved the point, a businessman’s dishonesty was laid bare and he received an
Unlawful planning permissions are regularly overturned by judges, and those who pre-empt their decisions by carrying out developments prematurely do so at their own risk. In one such case, however, the High Court found that a council was justified in refusing to take immediate enforcement
Product liability and professional indemnity insurance policies invariably require that any potential claims must be swiftly notified to the insurer, but what exactly does that mean? The Court of Appeal has considered the issue in an important test case. The case concerned a company that
Employers are fully entitled to take a very dim view of violence in the workplace – but, when considering what action to take, each case must be considered on its own facts. In one case, a worker who lost his job following an angry office
The location of a company’s registered office is not always an indication of where it has its centre of main interest (COMI). The issue can be of crucial importance to insolvency practitioners, as one High Court case revealed. The case concerned three companies that were
Many housing estates are subject to restrictive covenants for the benefit of present and future residents and they can act as a control mechanism on development that is just as effective as the planning system. In one case that illustrated the point, a planning consent
Commercial contracts often endure harmoniously for many years, but their very longevity can make termination even more acrimonious. That was certainly so in the case of an employment agency that provided staff to a retailer for more than 20 years prior to its replacement following
