The recent TCC decision in Brit Inns Ltd (in liquidation) v. BDW Trading Ltd (Costs) [2012] EWHC 2489 (TCC) is a useful summary of the costs principles that will be applied where Claimants pursue inflated claims – either deliberately or through lack of sufficient care. The relevant principles will be:
Government’s plan to boost UK house building
Recently the Prime Minister announced a new housing and planning package that is intended to stimulate:
The British Columbia Supreme Court recently reviewed the considerations to be applied on an application by a secured creditor to lift a stay of proceedings granted in an initial order under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (the "CCAA"). In Re Azure Dynamics Corp.,1 Madam Justice Fitzpatrick confirmed that the classic "doomed to fail" argument will not be persuasive where the applicant creditor is not prejudiced, and where the objectives of the CCAA are best served, by allowing the stay of proceedings to continue.
background
During the current economic slowdown businesses in many industries, including some in the industrial engineering sector, are struggling to make payments to suppliers; some have even gone into bankruptcy. However, under Polish law it is possible for a creditor to achieve some protection even if specific provisions are absent from the contract.
Financial support directions and insolvency: the Regulator's statement
On May 14, 2012, in 9-Ball Interests Inc. v. Traditional Life Sciences Inc.1, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (the "Court") rendered another decision that demonstrates the importance of full disclosure and transparency in applications made to the Court.
A year after the uncertainty created in the Canadian corporate debt financing world by the Ontario Court of Appeal's pensions-friendly decision in the Indalex CCAA restructuring matter2, the Quebec Superior Court, in April 2012, determined in a lengthy and well-reasoned decision that the key restructuring and pensions law principles underpinning Indalex do not apply in Quebec when considering the treatment of defined benefit amortization payment and deficit claims in a restructuring.
Natural England makes geographic information datasets available under the Open Government licence
This means that datasets about areas of significance for the natural environment such as protected site boundaries, are now made available under a perpetual licence for commercial and non-commercial use. See link to natural England website for further information.
Squatting criminalised
FOS upholds two Keydata complaints against IFAs but concludes that compensation should only be paid in one
The Financial Ombudsman Service ("FOS") has provisionally upheld two complaints made by Mr W and Mr and Mrs K against IFAs who recommended that they invest in the Keydata Bonds in 2005. FOS found that the products presented a greater risk than the investors were willing to take. Interestingly, however, compensation has only been offered to Mr and Mrs K.
In Blight v Brewster [2012] EWHC 165 (Ch) the High Court allowed a creditor to enforce his judgment debt against a debtor's pension funds. The court followed a 2011 Privy Council case (Tasarruf Mevduati Sinorta Fonu v Merrill Lynch Bank and Trust Company & ors) in holding that it had jurisdiction to do so under section 37 of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Section 37 provides that the court may appoint a receiver in all cases in which it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so.