The Court of Appeal has held that a director was not personally liable as an accessory to a tort committed by a company and has given guidance on the applicable principles: Barclay-Watt v Alpha Panareti Public Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1169. For a director or senior manager to be held personally liable as an accessory … Read more

The challenge of enforcing court orders in respect of cryptocurrencies may become easier, following the settlement announced last week between the Bitcoin Association for BSV and Tulip Trading Ltd (TTL). This follows the significant case brought by Dr Craig Wright against a number of blockchains and their developers in 2021: Tulip Trading Limited v Bitcoin … Read more

The High Court has handed down its long-awaited judgment in the US$5 billion civil fraud action brought by the Hewlett Packard group in connection with its acquisition of the UK software company Autonomy Corporation Limited in 2012: ACL Netherlands BV & Ors v Lynch & Ors [2022] EWHC 1178 (Ch). The judgment follows a previously published Summary of Conclusions, … Read more

The High Court has held that cryptoasset systems and software developers did not owe a duty to cryptoasset owners to permit or enable access to the assets where the owners had lost control over the assets following a hack. The court set aside an order permitting service of the proceedings on the developers out of … Read more

The Supreme Court has confirmed that an individual who is the subject of a criminal investigation will, in general, have a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of the investigation until he or she is charged: Bloomberg LP v ZXC [2022] UKSC 5. This decision follows a number of first instance decisions to similar effect, … Read more

In a decision handed down this morning, the High Court has found that a tax QC who had prepared opinions for the promoter of film finance tax schemes did not owe a duty of care to the investors in those schemes – and that even if he had owed a duty, the views he expressed … Read more

The exponential growth in the volume of data being collected and shared, along with the ease and reduced costs of gathering, analysing, using and exploiting data, has resulted in a corresponding increase in data protection laws and regulations. Against that background, data class actions have been a growing phenomenon, driven in part by the interest … Read more

The High Court has refused an application to strike out or summarily dismiss a claim for fraudulent misrepresentation in the group litigation against Volkswagen arising from the well-known “Dieselgate” emissions scandal. The court held that conscious awareness of the alleged implied misrepresentation was not necessary for the claim to have a real prospect of success … Read more