Court : House of Lords
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Mance. For the reasons he gives, with which I agree, I too would allow this appeal. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, 2. I have had the advantage of reading in advance the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Mance. I agree with it and, for the reasons he gives, I too would allow this appeal. LORD WALKER OF GESTINGTHORPE My Lords, 3. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Mance. I agree with it, and for the reasons which Lord Mance gives I would allow this appeal. LORD MANCE Introduction 4. This appeal raises points of construction on a Lloyd’s accountants’ professional indemnity policy which are of some difficulty, though no general importance. They relate to the scope and existence of cover afforded to the appellant, a “not for profit” umbrella corporation based in Illinois called Grant...
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LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. The issue in this case is whether the Commissioners can maintain a civil claim for damages under the tort of unlawful means conspiracy against a participant in a missing trader intra-community, or carousel, fraud. Two questions need to be considered. The first is whether it is open to the Commissioners to maintain a cause of action in damages at common law as a means of recovering VAT from a person who has not been made accountable or otherwise liable for that tax by Parliament. The second is whether, if so, it is an essential requirement of the tort of unlawful means conspiracy that the conduct which is said to amount to the unlawful means should give rise to a separate action in tort against at least one of the conspirators. 2. On the second issue the Court of Appeal considered itself bound by prior Court of Appeal authority to hold that the unlawful means had to be independently actionable: [2007] EWCA Civ 39, paras 78-79. Its decision to strike ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : House of Lords
LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond. For the reasons she gives, with which I agree, I too would dismiss this appeal. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, 2. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond and for the reasons she gives, with which I am in full agreement, I too would dismiss this appeal. LORD WALKER OF GESTINGTHORPE My Lords, 3. I have had the privilege of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond. I am in full agreement with it, and I too would dismiss this appeal. BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND My Lords, 4. Any parent of teenagers aged 16 and 17 knows how difficult they can be. But they also know that, however much those teenagers are struggling to discover their own identities and lead independent lives, they also depend upon the love and the support of their parents....
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The issue in this appeal is whether loss attributable to the death by suicide of the late Mr Thomas Corr is recoverable by his dependent widow under section 1 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 in this action against his former employer. 2. Mr Corr was employed as a maintenance engineer by the appellant company (“the employer”), a manufacturer of light commercial vehicles. On 22 June 1996, then aged almost 31, he was working on a prototype line of presses which produced panels for Vauxhall vehicles. He was working, with another, to remedy a fault on an automated arm with a sucker for lifting panels. The machine picked up a metal panel from the press, without warning, and moved it forcibly in Mr Corr’s direction. He would have been decapitated had he not instinctively moved his head. He was struck to the right side of his head and most of his right ear was severed. 3. As a result of this accident, Mr Corr underwent long and painful re...
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LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. I adopt with gratitude his account of the facts and of the provisions of the contract that have given rise to the dispute. I add these brief comments to explain why, after some initial hesitation, I agree with him that the appeal should be dismissed. 2. For the reasons that were explained in Melville Dundas Ltd v George Wimpey UK Ltd [2007] UKHL18, [2007] 1 WLR 1136, the background to the case is to be found in the provisions of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. Section 108(1) of that Act provides that a party to a construction contract has the right to refer a dispute arising under the contract to adjudication under a procedure complying with that section. Section 109 provides that a party to a construction contract is entitled to payment by instalments for any work under the contract and that the parties a...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. In this action the seller (Scottish and Newcastle International Limited) seeks to recover the price of goods sold from the buyer (Othon Ghalanos Limited). SandN is a company based in Scotland, Ghalanos a company registered in Cyprus. The contract related to 11 consignments of cider shipped from Liverpool to Limassol in June-July 2004. The question before the House is whether the English court has jurisdiction to entertain the action. The answer to that question turns, by virtue of article 5(1)(b) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001, on whether, as a matter of English law applied to the particular contract made between the parties, the goods were or should have been delivered by SandN to Ghalanos in England. Both Andrew Smith J ([2006] EWHC 1039 (Comm)) and the Court of Appeal (Waller and Rix LJJ: [2006] EWCA Civ 1750, [2007] 1 All ER (Comm) 1027) held in favour of SandN that the English court does have jurisdiction, but Ghalanos challenges the co...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. On 23 April 1997 in the Crown Court at Worcester each of the appellants was convicted by a jury of causing grievous bodily harm with intent contrary to section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. For that offence each was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. The first appellant received a concurrent sentence for another offence and the second appellant received a consecutive sentence of 2 years’ for other offences, making a total sentence in his case of 14 years’. For the purposes of this appeal, referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, it is accepted that when the trial of the appellants began in April 1997, although leave to prefer voluntary bills had previously been given on two occasions, there was no signed indictment before the Crown Court. The evidence at the trial ended on Friday 18 April. On Monday 21 April 1997 the appellants were arraigned on an additional (but alternative) co...
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LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speeches of my noble and learned friends, Lord Scott of Foscote and Baroness Hale of Richmond. I am grateful to Lord Scott for setting out the facts and the procedural history and to Baroness Hale for her explanation of the wider context in which the legislation that we are concerned with needs to be viewed. For the reasons Baroness Hale gives I would allow the appeal and make the order that she proposes. 2. The question is whether the phrase “the whole or a substantial part of any premises in which the flat is contained” in section 47(2)(b)(ii) of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 enables the landlord, unconstrained by their existing state, to identify the premises by drawing his own line around the tenant’s flat in support of his counter-notice or whether it refers to the existing and objectively recognisable state of the premises. No direct assistance can...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. For the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead, with which I agree, I would dismiss this appeal. LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD My Lords, 2. In April 2007 two European arrest warrants were issued by the Circuit Court of Legnica for the extradition of the appellant to Poland. The decisions on which the warrants were based were orders by Judge Bartlomiej Treter for the appellant to be arrested for the purpose of serving custodial sentences which had been imposed on him by the District Court in Lubin after his conviction for various offences and which had become final. The validity of each warrant falls to be determined under Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003. This is the measure by which the United Kingdom has transposed into national law the Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States (2002/548/JHA; OJ 2002 L 190, p1). Poland was designated as a ca...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the benefit of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Scott of Foscote. I am in full agreement with his reasoning and his conclusions and therefore, like him, I would dismiss the appeal. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, 2. This is an appeal from the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. The Statement of Facts and Issues, agreed and signed by counsel for both parties, identifies two issues of construction of the Proceeds of Crime (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (“the 1996 Order”) for your Lordships to decide. One of these your Lordships must decide; the other, in my opinion, does not arise on the facts of this case. It is convenient, therefore, before describing the issues, to outline the relevant facts. The facts 3. At arraignments on 8 January 2002 and 15 January 2002 the appellant, Mr Maye, pleaded guilty to various counts of obtaining property by deception. Sentencing was adjourned in order, inter ali...
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