The Government on 20 May 2020 published the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill, which contains the most far-reaching reforms to UK insolvency law in over 30 years. The Bill has been introduced on an emergency basis in an attempt to ensure that otherwise financially viable companies survive during a period of unprecedented interruption and turmoil. … Read more
The High Court has held that a supplier of soft toys was entitled to restitution of the value of the services it had provided to a toy designer, in anticipation of a contract to mass produce the developed toy. The judge further found that a claim in restitution for services provided in anticipation of a … Read more
We have launched a new podcast series in which our procurement law experts discuss hot topics and live issues in the field of public procurement. These include the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on public procurement procedures and disputes, and litigation in the field of public procurement in the UK. The available episodes are listed … Read more
The High Court has ruled that directors breached their duties by taking up the company’s business opportunity for their own benefit, even if the company was unable to take up that opportunity by reason of its financial position: Davies v Ford & Ors [2020] EWHC 686. The decision confirms the strict nature of directors’ duties … Read more
Today the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Wm Morrisons Supermarkets Plc v Various Claimants [2020] UKSC 12, bringing to its conclusion a case which had the potential to alter significantly the data protection and cyber security litigation and class action landscape. The headline news is that Morrisons has been found not to be … Read more
The Court of Appeal has granted an award for unjust enrichment where a claimant was contractually entitled to receive an introduction fee if a property was sold for a specified price and the property had been sold for less than that price: Philip Barton v Timothy Gwyn-Jones [2019] EWCA Civ 1999. The court rejected the … Read more
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeal reconfirmed that the Duomatic principle can only apply where all shareholders have approved the relevant act of the company. It is not enough that a relevant individual would have approved the act had they known about it: Dickinson v NAL Realisations (Staffordshire) Ltd [2019] EWCA CIV 2146. … Read more
Revisiting over 150 years of case law, the High Court has resolved a question on which both the courts and textbooks had given conflicting answers: is a director’s liability for payment of a dividend which is unlawful as a result of incorrect accounts fault-based or strict? Going against what appeared to be the established wisdom, … Read more
Damien Byrne Hill, our head of dispute resolution for the UK and US, reflected on the past challenges and future priorities for the CPR at a conference held at Mansfield College in Oxford last week to mark the 20 year anniversary of the CPR. Damien’s remarks were based on the results of an exercise to … Read more
