Characterisation meaning

Alaska Airlines Inc v Virgin Aviation TM Ltd and another company [2025] EWHC 2505 (Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? The principal outcomes of Mr Justice Foxton’s analysis can be stated as follows: Where an unjust enrichment claim founded on failure of basis is invoked to stop payment of a contractual amount, the correct characterisation is that this engages the defence of circuity of action (para [49]). In that scenario, circuity of action does not mean the debt is never due; rather, it supplies a defence to liability. A broadly drafted no set off clause captures such a defence, so summary judgment can be granted (para [52]). To reach those conclusions, Foxton J reviewed a range of authorities in which no set off provisions were relied upon (see especially para [47]), and he also considered and clarified other decisions relevant to the underlying issues of principle. Accordingly, a debtor cannot avoid a summary determination merely by pointing to...

Methanex Trinidad (Titan) Unlimited v The Board of Inland Revenue (Trinidad and Tobago) [2025] UKPC 20 What are the practical implications of this case? The Privy Council’s ruling underscores the primacy of correctly identifying the legal character of routine commercial payments and intra‑group transactions, and how that legal characterisation interfaces with the application of tax treaties. It dismissed the suggestion that the supposed ‘substance’ of the dealings in question departed from their legal form; rather, the transactions were to be treated as they stood in law. As the payments were neither ‘artificial’ nor ‘fictitious’, the tax authority was required to apply the CARICOM Tax Treaty to the transactions as it found them, and was not permitted to re‑label or recast them as anything else at law. In this way, the decision confirms that ordinary corporate arrangements, where genuine, must be respected for treaty purposes. The judgment is also a significant precedent on the principles of interpretation that apply to international tax treaties, guiding how such agreements should be...

Re Avanti Communications Ltd [2023] EWHC 940 (Ch) This marks the first substantial judgment on the divide between fixed and floating charges since the House of Lords’ landmark ruling in Re Spectrum Plus [2005] UKHL 41, which reclassified an apparent fixed charge over book debts as floating because the chargor could freely deploy the charged assets and the security holder therefore lacked the requisite control to constitute a fixed charge. The designation of security as ‘fixed’ or ‘floating’ under English law now carries even greater weight given HMRC (the UK tax authority) ranks as a preferential creditor for certain taxes in insolvency—ie those taxes sit behind fixed charge realisations but ahead of floating charge realisations. That characterisation had a decisive effect on the order of payments in Avanti’s administration: as the charge was properly treated as fixed, the secured creditors recovered in full; had it instead been treated as floating, part of the proceeds would have been payable to HMRC (as preferential creditor) and to unsecured creditors up to...

Scope of this Practice Note This Practice Note sets out the main types of radioactive waste and examines disposal against the EU-defined waste hierarchy. It places contemporary management of radioactive waste within the historical development of the nuclear industry from a planning standpoint. Principal policy documents are reviewed to chart the evolution of government thinking over time. Geological disposal of Higher Activity Waste (HAW) under the Planning Act 2008 (PA 2008) is compared with alternative disposal routes under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) and the Planning (Wales) Act 2015. Consultation duties, application processes and required consents are identified for both regimes. Notable planning appeals and judicial review cases are highlighted before looking at international approaches to radioactive waste. What is radioactive waste? In the UK, radioactive waste arises—and will arise—from past, current and future programmes for electricity generation from nuclear fission, the reprocessing of nuclear fuel, the development of nuclear weapons, the nuclear submarine fleet and wastes from radioactive materials used for civil...

What is an intrusive site investigation? An intrusive (phase 2) site investigation involves geotechnical and geo-environmental specialists collecting detailed and reliable information on a site’s physical and chemical ground conditions. These findings are then applied to: the design of earthworks and foundations, and determining whether contamination is present The UK follows a risk-based framework for the identification, assessment and management of contaminated land, based on the idea of a contaminant linkage (once called a pollutant linkage), ie contaminant-pathway-receptor. For further information, see Practice Note: Contaminated land—risk assessment. Site characterisation is generally carried out in a clear staged manner: screening phase: an initial investigation consisting of a desk study phase 1: a site walkover and qualitative risk assessment phase 2: intrusive site investigations involving the analysis of soil, groundwater and/or gas samples and a quantitative risk assessment For further information on desktop studies and phase 1 assessments, see Practice Note: Environmental investigations—types of searches...

A private foundation is a legal person created by an individual, a family, or a collective of individuals for the founders’ benefit. It may equally be established for charitable or philanthropic aims. Historically, foundations are closely linked indeed to civil law territories, most prominently in Liechtenstein, and also Austria, Switzerland, Panama, St Kitts, Seychelles, Nevis, Anguilla, Malta, Curaçao and the Netherlands Antilles; they appear less commonly in common law states such as the Bahamas, where they were introduced in 2004. In more recent times, common law centres including Jersey, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Mauritius have also enacted statutes permitting the creation of foundations. What is a foundation? Foundations trace their roots to civil law systems. An early antecedent was the Roman law device known as the fideicommissum, employed to circumvent limits on who might be named as an heir. For instance, if A wished to pass assets to C but C fell outside the permissible class of heirs, A would appoint B—who did qualify—as heir and...