Planning permission is usually all that you need to turn your development plans into reality – but not always. In one case, a restrictive covenant enshrined in title deeds before the Second World War was enough to defeat proposals for a new bungalow. The covenant
Government ministers cannot be expected to know everything that civil servants are doing in their name. However, as one High Court ruling emphasised, it is vitally important that decisions that bear their signatures are reasonably consistent. The case concerned a planning permission that had been
The so-called ‘grey market’ in genuine branded goods, the sale of which is prohibited by trade mark proprietors for quality control or other reasons, is just as illegal as trading in counterfeits, the Supreme Court has ruled in an important test case. The case concerned
Universities were once easily defined institutions, but the increasingly diversified and commercial nature of the higher education estate has muddied the waters. In that context, the Court of Appeal considered the tax treatment of a private company that was accredited to provide degree courses on
It is possible to be resident in more than one country at the same time and those who have been resident in England for three months or more are generally also viewed as domiciled here. The High Court made those points in considering the position
When buying holiday homes abroad, it is absolutely vital to employ solicitors who are entirely independent of the vendors. One case that resoundingly proved the point concerned a development of luxury homes in Italy that was alleged to have been a money laundering front for
Construction contracts frequently require works to comply with recognised standards set by independent bodies – but what happens if those standards are wrong? The Supreme Court tackled that issue in the context of two offshore wind farms that began to fail soon after their construction,
Companies are, on pain of criminal sanction, required by to keep their shareholder registers open for public inspection. However, as a Court of Appeal test case made clear, shareholders are entitled to expect that their personal data will only be used for proper purposes. Pursuant
Local authorities are under intense pressure from central government to do their bit in meeting the burgeoning need for more new homes. That was illustrated in one High Court case in which a council succeeded in overturning a planning inspector’s ruling that it did not
The impact of the UK’s human rights obligations on employment law is still a subject of much debate almost 20 years after the advent of the Human Rights Act 1998. In one important case, the Court of Appeal upheld a trade union’s plea that the
