Lois Aldred of 12 King’s Bench Walk previously blogged about the decision of the Outer House of the Court of Session in Warner v Scapa Flow Charters. That decision – in favour of the pursuer – has since been overturned by the Inner House. The litigation in summary concerns the standard of care required of the…
Read moreCourt of Appeal: closure of FPS was not a good reason to extend time for service abroad
Back in the midst of the pandemic, we blogged about the decision of the Senior Master to shut down the Foreign Process Section of the Queen’s Bench Division. The effect, as we pointed out in a follow-up blog post, was to make it practically impossible to serve abroad in many cases. Can litigants rely on…
Read moreCosts capping order refused in Malawian tea plantation litigation
A fascinating costs decision has just been released (please bear with me) in Thomas & Ors v PGI Group Ltd [2021] EWHC 2776 (QB). Kate Boakes is one of the counsel team representing the Claimants. 31 women employed at tea and macadamia nut plantations in Malawi allege sexual assault, harassment, and other types of sexual…
Read moreSupreme Court to rule in Brownlie (again)
A newsflash: the Supreme Court has announced it will be handing down judgment in FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC v Brownlie at 9.45 am on Wednesday 20 October. Watch this space …
Read moreWhen in Rome … Guidance from judges applying Italian law
Two recent decisions – both coincidentally dealing with the application of Italian law in the English courts – have given some useful general indicators about how the courts will approach the determination of disputes concerning foreign law. In River Countess BV & Ors v MSC Cruise Management (UK) Ltd [2021] EWHC 2652 (Admlty), Andrew Baker…
Read moreLocal standards in skiing claims
My thanks to Tom Collins of 1 Chancery Lane for letting me feature this article about a recent package travel case in which he successfully appeared on instructions from Michael Gwilliam of Plexus Legal LLP. The article first appeared in 1 Chancery Lane’s Weekly Roundup, which can be accessed here. In Doyle v Rayburn Tours Limited (Unreported)…
Read moreGriffiths overturned by Court of Appeal majority
In Griffiths v TUI (UK) Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 1442, the Court of Appeal has handed down judgment on the question of whether the court can evaluate and reject an “uncontroverted” expert’s report, and if so, in what circumstances. The background to this holiday sickness case will by now be familiar to travel lawyers: we…
Read moreCourt of Appeal: strike out stands in Nigerian oil spill “representative action”
The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision that claims pursued in a “representative action” on behalf of over 28,000 members of the Bonga community in Nigeria affected by an oil spill will be struck out. This was a claim on behalf of individuals and communities based on the coast of Nigeria spanning Bayelsa State…
Read moreLord Frost: changes incoming for retained EU law
A major issue for English civil lawyers since Brexit has been making sense of the complex new idea of “retained EU law”. Sam Cuthbert wrote an excellent summary of the key points in a blog back in January of this year. 2TG have recently released a detailed analysis of the many difficult questions about this…
Read moreCan a defendant who unnecessarily submits to the jurisdiction be an “anchor defendant”?
This is a short blog considering a fairly niche but potentially important issue. The situation is this: The Claimant brings a claim against a foreign-domiciled D1, who submits to the jurisdiction. In fact, if D1 had not submitted, then there would not have been any valid jurisdictional basis for the claim against D1. Can D1…
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