Dispute Resolution

Many of you will have seen the recent articles in the press of people reportedly using contactless card readers to ‘digitally pickpocket’ unsuspecting victims. In this blog I look at the legal position if you find yourself a victim of such an attack. I should start by saying that there is still some debate over […]

Intellectual property law has never been a laughing matter. Until now. Having a sense of humour on the internet is fraught with many dangers, but, beyond the minefields of taste and offence, the wrong joke, using the wrong pop culture reference, could also get a comedian sued. Using material from a song or a film in […]

Unknown to most, a legal argument about a chocolate bar has been raging now for years and despite a High Court decision last week the battle is set to continue. The case involves trade marks, specifically a three-dimensional mark in the shape of the four-fingered version of the KitKat. In the UK it is possible […]

Most people know a tree when they see one. Big, leaves, branches, roots etc, but a recent Court of Appeal decision answered the rather unusual legal question: When does a tree become a tree? In Distinctive Properties (Ascot) Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another [2015], the Court of Appeal […]

It’s all too easy to be hypocritical when it comes to photographs of celebrities – appreciating that someone has a right to a private life doesn’t always stop us heading to the showbiz section of a newspaper’s website to see the latest pictures of someone famous going about their daily business. The result of this […]

Litigation should always be a last resort. Parties are expected to negotiate to try to settle their differences before and during court proceedings. Those who ignore this are often penalised by the courts. This was recently demonstrated in the High Court case of Gresport Finance Limited v Battaglia. In that case, the Court refused to […]

When you want to sell alcohol from a property to the general public, you need to have a premises licence from the local authority to be able to do so. If you don’t have a premises licence, you can be prosecuted and shut down by the local authority and / or the police. Your premises […]

As of 1 October the procedure for giving a tenant notice under an Assured Shorthold Tenancy has been radically changed. This is a result the Deregulation Act 2015, which has previously altered the Tenancy Deposit position once before. The somewhat vague name of the Act, which deals with a wide variety of subjects, is likely to […]

The Commercial Court’s recent decision in the case of Brit UW Limited and F&B Trenchless Solutions Limited serves as useful reminder that parties must disclose all material facts to their insurers when entering into a policy of insurance or face potentially disastrous consequences. F&B was a specialist tunnelling contractor and was subcontracted to construct a […]

£90billion pounds is spent by consumers in the UK every month. This figure is not surprising with more choice and variety of products being available online and now being able to shop wherever you are on a smart phone or tablet. Shopping has never been so easy. Consumer law on the other hand has become […]

In the recent case of The Northampton Regional Livestock Centre Company Limited v Cowling & Another, the Court of Appeal found that a partner who had been unaware of the wrongful conduct of one of his partners was still jointly and severally liable for that partner’s liability to a third party. In this case, Mr […]

The legal system prefers to hold the admirable point of view that evidence is genuine and everything said on oath is true. In the majority of cases this is more or less true, give or take a little mis-remembering in the witness stand. Every so often, however, a case comes along which requires a very […]