June 2010

In the current market, tenants increasingly seek to exercise break clauses of over-rented and unwanted properties, but in so doing have encountered resistance from landlords. Three recent High Court and Court of Appeal decisions underline the difficulties a tenant faces in attempting to effect a break clause in a commercial lease. This article will examine …

Continue reading “Property litigation: breaking up is hard to do”

The third party rights against insurers legislation allows a claimant to make a claim against a defendant’s insurers without having to issue court proceedings (and the term ‘defendant’ is used here to describe the party pursued by a claimant, whether or not proceedings have been issued). Furthermore, the rules apply as much where a defendant …

Continue reading “Third party rights: new law quickens procedures”

The internet promised a revolution in retailing. ‘One-click’ shopping was heralded as the ultimate in ease and comfort for savvy shoppers. While this remains largely true, increasingly the online retailing experience is characterised by a myriad of terms and conditions (T&Cs), privacy policies, order confirmation e-mails and delivery status notifications that need to be either …

Continue reading “E-commerce regulation: a tangled web”

The Bribery Act 2010 (the 2010 Act) is expected to come into force in October, but it is clear that many companies and their in-house legal teams still have a lot of work to do before they are ready to comply with the new law. At the end of March, with the new law on …

Continue reading “Bribery Act 2010: a guide for in-house lawyers”

In most litigation, evidence is everything. This is certainly true of passing off actions where, to succeed, the claimant must prove the classic trinity, namely a reputation and goodwill, a misrepresentation and consequential damage. This article is concerned with the second of those elements, the misrepresentation, and one of the methods of obtaining the evidence …

Continue reading “Trap orders to establish passing off”

Apart from specific requirements imposed to minimise the chance of loss, the insurer may also insist on more general obligations, such as a clause requiring the insured to take reasonable care to avoid liability, loss or damage.

Since the introduction of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the 1986 Act), there has been a standard way of dealing with the leasehold premises of a company in administration as part of the sale of the business. Typically, the business sale agreement provides for the purchaser to occupy the leased premises on the basis of an …

Continue reading “Administrators, landlords and tenants: three key cases”

In IHL169 we wrote of the effect of the House of Lords judgment in Transfield Shipping Inc v Mercator Shipping Inc [2008] (also referred to as The Achilleas), which cast some doubt on the application of the traditional rule on remoteness set out in Hadley v Baxendale (1854). In short, Transfield found that types of …

Continue reading “Liability: Transfield revisted”

Indian Legislature has ostensibly put into place a cohesive structure for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms, primarily through the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 (the 1996 Act). The 1996 Act is wide in its scope and within its ambit covers arbitrations, as well as conciliations. India, however, is still not a preferred destination for …

Continue reading “Proposed amendments to arbitration law in India: implications and effect”

The introduction of the Points-Based System (PBS) in November 2008 was the biggest change to UK immigration law for 45 years. Since the introduction of the PBS, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has sought to re-align responsibility for non-European Economic Area (EEA) nationals from the UKBA to UK employers and the migrants themselves. With the …

Continue reading “To comply or not to comply?”