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R (Greyhound Board of Great Britain Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2026] EWHC 670 (Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling reinforces the constitutional divide between the courts and the legislature. It explains that the scheme and framework of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (GWA 2006) embody that separation of powers, and that any judicial attempt to recognise and enforce a common law obligation on Welsh Ministers to consult prior to introducing legislation in the Senedd would trespass upon that boundary. This is not a departure from established principle; case law has already upheld comparable rules for lawmakers in Scotland and at Westminster. However, this is the first express confirmation of the position for Welsh lawmakers, and the first time this dimension of the GWA 2006 has been analysed in such depth. The court examined earlier
The solution arrived through the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), a quasi‑judicial body handling mass claims, created under UN Security Council Resolution 687. By addressing environmental harm—most notably via its ‘F4’ claim class—the UNCC set a seminal benchmark shaping how international law and contemporary arbitral panels allocate financial responsibility for wartime ecological devastation. With present-day wars in areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East bringing dam breaches, strikes on chemical facilities, and the burning of farmland, the UNCC’s legacy endures as an essential reference point for states, global investors, and companies engaged in post‑conflict arbitration. The F4 claims: Quantifying the unquantifiable Prior to the 1990s, mechanisms in international law for war reparations overwhelmingly favoured property loss, foregone earnings, and bodily injury. The natural world was commonly treated as a mute, non-compensable victim of armed hostilities...
Understanding the farming business as a business Many farms still use long-standing structures that arose by habit, not strategy. Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common. While once effective, such setups can cause major issues around succession, tax planning and involving the next generation. A corporate team can take a fresh, business-led view of the farm, asking: Who owns the land and other critical assets? Who manages daily operations? Who carries the risk and who enjoys the return? What is the enduring plan for succession? From this review, the team can confirm whether the current setup is fit for purpose or if an alternative — for example an updated partnership agreement, a company, a limited liability partnership, or a blended model — would better meet the family’s aims. Tax efficiency through joined-up advice Tax sits at the centre of most
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The pioneering role of the gaming industry Virtual goods and digital assets now originate, are bought and exchanged entirely online. They commonly mirror real-world products and services—virtually any item or offering found offline can be conceived in a digital guise. Unlike physical counterparts, however, a virtual item can be upgraded, altered and enriched with fresh functionality. Within gaming, such goods have long appeared as in‑game items: skins, outfits, accessories, gear and weapons for avatars. With blockchain, these assets can be made unique and their allocation or ownership recorded transparently, preventing double sales, enabling trading beyond a single game’s closed economy, and streamlining monetisation by tracking royalties on secondary transactions. Studios are already committing serious resources to tokenised assets. In up‑and‑coming worlds like Decentraland and The Sandbox, players can purchase, sell and develop parcels of virtual land with digital buildings. Ubisoft is rolling out NFTs in its...
Wright v Mc Cormack [2022] EWHC 2068 ( QB) (01 August 2022) What are the practical implications of this case? This is (hopefully) a one-off matter and a timely prompt for litigants to carefully check the accuracy and truthfulness of their pleadings and any witness material they intend to rely upon at trial. Although the claimant obtained damages, the judgment was notably scathing, particularly in finding that he had advanced a ‘deliberately false’ case about disinvitations from academic conferences. The claimant had sought to use those disinvitations to argue that the words complained of caused serious harm to his reputation. The court noted that, because serious harm bears on quantum, the inaccuracies surrounding the disinvitations were central to the claim. The case also stands as a stark warning that any errors within a case should be squarely addressed. The court found that the...
FACT has released research carried out by Opentext Security Solutions into the risks posed by illegal sports streaming sites. The study shows these platforms expose fans to financial fraud, harmful scams and explicit material. It further concludes that users are 'bombarded' with threats such as crypto scams, extreme or explicit pop-ups, and banking trojans, with the latter deemed the most dangerous hazard for viewers, according to the research findings published by FACT......
The EU plans to reinforce its cybersecurity regime through a second Network and Information Security Directive ( NIS2) (see: LNB News 03/12/2021 49). Alongside this, the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport ( DCMS) is consulting on legislative updates intended to bolster the UK’s cyber resilience (see: LNB News 21/06/2022 41). What are the key changes proposed by the EU for NIS2? The current Network and Information Systems Directive, Directive ( EU) 2016/1148 ( NIS1), applied in the EU (including the UK) from May 2018. NIS1 focuses on boosting resilience and raising cybersecurity standards for organisations delivering essential services across sectors (for example, energy), and also oversees certain digital service providers, though to a lesser extent. Within the EU, NIS2 will supersede NIS1. The Council of the EU has released a press statement outlining the principal changes put forward by NIS2, as...
Vardy v Rooney and another [2022] EWHC 2017 ( QB) What are the practical implications of this case? This decision will attract attention as a concrete application of the truth defence, and for Steyn J’s conclusion that the public interest defence failed. It also clarifies the contours of the defences advanced in modern media litigation before the court. It further demonstrates the court’s readiness to make inferential findings of fact where: primary evidence is absent, or has been intentionally lost or destroyed journalists move to set aside witness summonses and disclosure orders by relying on source protection: see section 10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and where waivers of source protection under that provision have been given ( Mrs Vardy) or given and then withdrawn ( Ms Watt) Mrs Vardy did not witness‑summon her ‘close friend and agent’, Ms Watt, who was by any measure a...
Background The UKIPO’s first call for evidence on AI and IP, running from 7 September to 30 November 2020, aimed to gather answers to numerous questions across patents, copyright, trade marks, designs and trade secrets. Feedback to that exercise highlighted concerns about the balance in the copyright regime between safeguarding human-created works and those produced by AI. Regarding patents, participants flagged potential obstacles to innovation as reliance on AI systems grows. For further details on that process, see News Analysis: Call for views on AI and IP—the UK government response. Building on those findings, the UKIPO opened an additional consultation to probe the key matters in greater depth. The resulting government response was issued on 28 June 2022 (see: LNB News 28/06/2022 48), and is considered below. Copyright and computer-generated works ( CGWs) The initial question for government was whether creations generated by a...
Shazam Productions Ltd v Only Fools The Dining Experience Ltd and others [2022] EWHC 1379 ( IPEC) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling marks a significant first: a UK court has recognised that copyright can inhere in a character, signalling a potential broadening of what qualifies as a protectable work under UK copyright law. The ramifications could be felt widely across sectors that draw on famous characters—advertisers, computer game creators and event organisers—as well as the more established creative spheres of books, plays, musicals, film and television. Prospective users of well-known characters may therefore be more cautious about the risk of infringement, while rights holders may point to the judgment to support claims for increased licensing revenue. It remains uncertain whether the defendants will seek to appeal; the matter was transferred from the High Court to the IPEC in 2020 to...
Fuhrmann-2- Gmb H v B Case C‑249/21 What are the practical implications of this case? The Court of Justice held that, when assessing compliance with Directive 2011/83/ EU (the EU Consumer Rights Directive), only the wording displayed on the order confirmation button itself counts in showing that, at the moment of ordering, the consumer clearly accepts that their action entails an obligation to pay. Consequently, traders must take particular care with the precise text used on any button that signifies a payment commitment... The European Commission’s latest guidance on the EU Consumer Rights Directive further clarifies that the order button on a website must be clearly labelled, with the relevant indication placed on the button or directly alongside it. Examples that express the required message include: buy now pay now confirm purchase By contrast, expressions such as: register confirm order...
Unite the Union v Freitas [2022] EWHC 666 ( QB) What are the practical implications of this case? Defamation actions by trade unions are rare. In EETPU v Times Newspapers Ltd [1980] QB 585 it was determined that such actions could not be pursued, although that position likely no longer states the law: see Duncan and Neill on Defamation, 5th edn, 10.11. In granting a substantial sum (comparable with numerous general damages awards to trading companies), Mr Justice Collins Rice acknowledged the centrality of reputation to a union. The judge observed that unions depend on their standing to recruit and retain members and that, to conduct collective bargaining effectively, a reputation for acting in good faith and for recommending the best achievable outcome is fundamental to their purpose. Even so, the decision should be approached with care for two...
What are the practical implications of this case? In dismissing Bloomberg’s appeal, the Supreme Court relied extensively on a run of first‑instance decisions recognising a claimant’s reasonable expectation of privacy while they are the subject of a state investigation but have not been charged. The outcome is unsurprising, yet claimant representatives will view it as welcome confirmation that this expectation is the legitimate starting point in any given case. Although the dispute centres on the tort of misuse of private information, the court’s acceptance that, in appropriate circumstances, an individual’s reputation may fall within Article 8 will interest defamation specialists. The ruling also intensifies scrutiny of the long‑standing common law principle in Bonnard v Perryman [1891] 2 Ch 269. In essence, that principle bars a claimant from securing an interim injunction to stop publication of proposed defamatory material where the defendant indicates an...
Leave. EU Group Ltd and another v Information Commissioner [2022] EWCA Civ 109 What are the practical implications of this case? This decision distils the key considerations a court will weigh when deciding how to handle an appeal where one party is absent. In relation to appeals originating in the Upper Tribunal, it delivers a detailed examination of the scope of the Court of Appeal’s powers under the Tribunal Procedure ( Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 ( TP( UT) Rules 2008), SI 2008/2698, and then tests whether the applicable thresholds are met on the facts, including whether the hearing was duly notified and whether proceeding serves the interests of justice. For appeals that do not come from the Upper Tribunal, the judgment confirms the court’s inherent jurisdiction to continue with an appeal despite a party’s non‑attendance. Finally, practitioners will welcome the court’s remarks on the...
Abdulrazaq and others v Hassan and others [2021] EWHC 3252 ( QB) What are the practical implications of this case? The judgment’s central interest lies in its treatment of the claimants’ contention that the impugned words were not, in truth, a reply issued by the defendants to an attack from the claimant. Rather, the claimants advanced that those words amounted to a riposte to an attack they had themselves published in expectation of a likely assault by the defendants (that is, a riposte to a reply published in anticipation). On that basis, the claimants said the privilege ought not to extend to the defendants’ riposte to the claimants’ attack/anticipated reply. Typically, reply-to-attack privilege does not cover the initial publication—the attack—but does protect the reply, irrespective of whether the first publication is defamatory. The claimants maintained that a riposte to a predicted attack should fall outside the...
Top System SA v Belgium Case C-13/20 What are the practical implications of this case? Practitioners already recognise that software licensing terms cannot bar decompilation where it is indispensable to obtain information needed to secure interoperability between computer programmes, provided the conditions in the relevant Software Directive are satisfied. Beyond this (limited) carve‑out, it was commonly thought that decompilation could be prohibited by a software licence (see the Opinion of AG Szpunar of 10 March 2021, point 82). Indeed, the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 ( CDPA 1988) states that copyright is not infringed when a programme is copied or altered, so long as those steps are necessary for the licensee’s lawful use and are not excluded by contract ( CDPA 1988, s 50C). In practice, software licences often expressly ban decompilation. Yet the Court of Justice held that...
Joined cases Vodafone Gmb H v Bundesrepublik Deutschland Case C-854/19; Verbraucherzentralen und Verbraucherverbände— Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e V v Vodafone Gmb H Case C-5/20; and Telekom Deutschland Gmb H v Bundesrepublik Deutschland Case C-34/20 What are the practical implications of this case? Zero tariff, or zero rating, has long been contentious because it deliberately favours some app providers, clashing with net neutrality principles—the idea that the internet should be open to everyone and free from unequal treatment. Under these offers, a customer buys a data bundle but can use specified apps without that usage counting against their allowance. In other words, usage of named services does not reduce the volume of data included in the plan. These carve‑outs are determined by the ISP. The ISP chooses which apps are exempt and, typically, these are those linked to particular partnerships. In the Telenor ruling last year, the Court of...
Mars Capital Finance Ltd v Hussain and others [2021] EWHC 2416 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling underlines that, after a transfer of land has been entered on the register, any prior defects in the enforceability of the underlying contract for that transfer cease to matter. Accordingly, earlier formal shortcomings cannot be used to unsettle a completed, registered disposition. That principle is clear and decisive here. In addition—though not essential to the outcome—the judge endorsed the position that sections 43 and 44 of the Companies Act 2006 permit three mechanisms for a company to enter a written contract (by the company or on its behalf). This contrasts with the interpretation that, for the purposes of the Law of Property ( Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989, only two methods exist, and it departs from Lewison J’s approach in Redcard Ltd v...
Desporte v Bull [2021] EWHC 2370 ( QB) What are the practical implications of this judgment? This ruling underscores that, where an adversary is intent on clogging the process and harassing the court and other participants with a flood of hopeless claims and applications, parties ought to act promptly by seeking an ECRO, curbing escalating costs and avoiding futile hearings. It also distils the principles judges apply when considering such orders. Crucially, although a person's lack of representation is a relevant feature, it does not pardon persistent abuse of process or baseless claims, especially where clear warnings about the likely repercussions have already been given. What was the background? Although we attempt to condense the backdrop, the matter comprises a tangled web of claims, applications, hearings and rulings across a number of years, many found to be wholly without merit or aimed solely at...
The Software Incubator Ltd v Computer Associates UK Ltd Case C‑410/19 What are the practical implications of this case? The Court of Justice has issued the most recent ruling in a protracted dispute first considered by the High Court in 2016, arising out of an agreement that was terminated in 2013. The case will now return to the Supreme Court which, pursuant to Articles 86 and 89 of the UK/ EU Withdrawal Agreement, is obliged to give effect to that judgment. Although the Supreme Court’s final position is still awaited, the decision is expected to carry major consequences for software resellers who, acting as commercial agents, may rely on the protections and remedies provided by the Commercial Agents Regulations, SI 1993/3053, irrespective of the format or medium through which software is supplied to customers. It is likewise important for principals that deploy...
Galer v Mond (administrator of SFPL Ltd) and another [2021] EWHC 1952 ( Ch), [2021] All ER ( D) 110 ( Jan) What are the practical implications of this case? Several elements of this ruling turn on the precise wording of the facility agreement and the deed of assignment, so its broader relevance is limited. Even so, the court set out helpful general guidance: in the absence of any evidence of misconduct, it is wholly improper to imply that a particular administrator will fail to fulfil their duties properly. The judge made plain that one cannot obtain a declaration that an administrator’s appointment is invalid by relying on what he described as 'a smokescreen of general allegations'... What was the background? SFPL Ltd ( SFPL) was incorporated in August 2016 as a vehicle for the acquisition and development of a property in London. There were a number of...
Mincione v Gedi Gruppo Editoriale Sp A [2021] EWHC 2006 ( QB) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling offers practical insight for practitioners on procedure and substance. On the procedural front, it intimates that a defendant may contest the court’s jurisdiction under CPR 11(1) in relation to only part of a claim, not merely the whole. Although, on a literal reading, CPR 11(1) does not appear to authorise such a partial challenge, the notes in Civil Procedure 2021 ( Volume 1) (the White Book) suggest—albeit without authority—that it can be done. Tipples J voiced reservations because of the wording of CPR 11(1), particularly when contrasted with a provision like CPR 24.2(a). Nevertheless, as the claimant did not take the point, the court proceeded on the footing that jurisdiction existed. The judgment also addresses timing. Where the...
‘ CV- Online Latvia’ SIA v ‘ Melons’ SIA Case C-762/19 What are the practical implications of this case? Across the EU, when a website or online database provides a search tool that automatically draws into its results information sourced from third-party databases, this will typically infringe database right. There can, however, be circumstances where the practice is lawful if it can be shown that using data from those third-party databases does not prejudice the maker’s investment—for instance, where the data is deployed in a wholly unrelated market that the maker neither foresaw nor competes in. Nonetheless, in most situations it will be necessary to obtain permission from the maker of any third-party databases employed to produce an aggregated search result. What was the background? A jobs website ( Melons) offered a search engine that queried several websites hosting job...
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When evaluating a general damages claim, the practitioner ought initially to refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG)...
This Practice Note This Practice Note reviews mechanisms used in settling litigation. A Tomlin order consists of a consent order paired with a schedule. It operates to stay proceedings on terms that have been agreed. The provisions contained in the schedule may remain confidential. This Practice Note describes the scope of confidentiality attaching to the schedule and sets out how it differs from a standard consent order. Sample wording for a Tomlin order is included, alongside links to precedents, as well as guidance on court approval. It also addresses varying, setting aside and enforcing a Tomlin order, including the considerations the court will take into account when handling applications for each. Further guidance is provided on interpreting and applying the relevant provisions of the CPR; however, some courts and divisions impose very specific requirements for both drafting and approval, and for approaching the schedule and confidentiality issues. Accordingly, you must consider the particular rules and court guide provisions in the forum where your claim is proceeding when drawing up the Tomlin order...
Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...
I, [ name ], of [ address ], solemnly and sincerely state that: [ Matters to be verified, set out in numbered paragraphs ] I make this solemn statement in good conscience, believing it to be true, and pursuant to the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835. DECLARED at [ details ] this [ day ] day of [ month and year ] Before me ................................................................................ [ signature of the person before whom the declaration is made ] A [ commissioner for oaths OR [ solicitor OR [ insert other qualification ] ] authorised to administer oaths ]...
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