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A recent Court of Appeal case has reaffirmed the principle that the English courts will uphold a clause that allows commercial restitution, but not one that constitutes a penalty. When an advertising business bought a Middle Eastern company that had been...

The Court of Appeal recently ruled that when a council neglected to reduce the crowns of trees in a park for several years, thus allowing the roots to grow, it was foreseeable that this might result in damage to adjacent properties. The case involved a...

The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 makes the unauthorised subletting of a council property a criminal offence. The prosecution can be brought by the council concerned. Where subletting or parting with possession of the whole of the property...

When a couple entered into an artificial tax-saving scheme which subsequently failed, they placed the blame firmly at the door of the Isle of Man tax consultancy that had advised them. The scheme involved the purchase of a £400,000 'capital redemption...

It is as well to remember that the Internet can be a threat, as well as a boon, to businesses, as is shown by a dispute involving a woman who registered a confusingly titled domain name and then used it to air her criticisms of a firm of estate agents. ...

A recent decision shows that the courts place a heavy burden of proof on those who claim that a will should be invalidated because the person making it lacks testamentary capacity (the legal term for 'being of unsound mind' and therefore incapable of...

When a company enters administration, the expenses it has incurred prior to the administration have a different status from the expenses incurred by the administrators. These latter expenses are in effect preferential to the former. This is important for...

Discounted prices seem to be everywhere these days, but recent decisions of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) show that sales promotions need to be treated with caution. A series of decisions recently saw shirt seller TM Lewin & Sons Limited and...

When the marriage of a wealthy Scandinavian couple broke up, the English court had to consider the effect of a pre-nuptial agreement ('pre-nup') which they had entered into in their homeland. Their considerable wealth was the result of the husband being the...

Taxpayers know well that when tax is unpaid, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) can make life difficult. Leaving aside the interest and penalty regimes for non-payment, HMRC are also by no means slow in bringing legal and even insolvency proceedings against tax...