A world-renowned belly dancer who has performed for royalty will have to stomach a costly defeat in her battle with the tax authorities after a tribunal ruled that the private tuition that she gives her clients is ‘recreational’, not ‘educational’, and thus subject to VAT.
A pharmaceutical company that got its fingers badly burned when it entered into an interest rate swap in an attempt to hedge itself against fluctuations in interest rates has ended up with a bill for nearly $6.3 million following a High Court ruling. The company
In a case which makes plain that a single home may have two front doors, the Upper Tribunal (UT) has ruled that it is legally possible for adjoining properties occupied by one large family to be viewed as a single dwelling house. A man and
Google Inc. has failed to block landmark High Court proceedings brought by three disgruntled Internet users who say that they were caused ‘acute distress and anxiety’ due to the tracking and collation of their private information, without their knowledge or consent, for the purposes of
A Turkish manufacturer which failed to deliver a consignment of high-tensile steel to Hong Kong is facing a multi-million-dollar bill after failing to convince the High Court that it had never agreed to a London arbitration clause being incorporated into the contract. The company was
As every gardener knows, conventional garden hoses have an infuriating tendency to kink and tangle. However, the problem of untidy sheds looks like being solved once and for all by a ground-breaking new product that promises to become a market leader following a Patents Court
The debate that has raged for more than 15 years since Parliament introduced the controversial three-year time limit on claims for repayment of VAT came under the legal spotlight as a local authority tried – but failed – to win back tax payments it made
A local resident’s concerns about a major redevelopment of a Cheshire town threw into sharp perspective the difficult balance that has to be struck between commercial confidentiality, legal professional privilege (LPP) and the public’s ‘right to know’. The local authority had for more than a
In a telling example of commercial dishonesty leading to ruin, a businessman who failed to reveal his chequered history when raising funds for the purchase of a well-known football club is facing an £18 million damages bill. A fund management company had agreed to advance
The tragic deaths of four miners in South Wales has led to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) bringing criminal charges against the owners of the mine under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. The CPS concluded that the failure to ensure a safe
