As dawn broke on Friday 24 June 2016, it became clear that the UK electorate had made a historic decision to bring to an end its 43 years of EU membership. The much discussed ‘Brexit’ would finally become a reality. While the 52%/48% decision to leave the EU is on the face of it clear, the overall result masks a very divided United Kingdom. While Wales and England voted to leave the EU, London, Northern Ireland and most notably Scotland, all voted to remain within the EU –

As opinion polls in the UK appear to indicate some momentum towards Brexit, we have pondered, as lawyers, just how easy would it be legally for the UK to withdraw from the European Union. The answer is largely to be found in Article 50 of the Treaty On the European Union. Article 50(1) states that “any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”. What are those constitutional requirements in the UK? As the UK’s

In the recent Court of Appeal case of Dubai Financial Group LLC v National Air Services Limited, the appellant, NAS, succeeded in having a default judgment set aside in respect of a dispute concerning a Gulfstream aircraft. The claim arose out of a purchase agreement for a 50% share in the aircraft, which agreement provided an option for DFG at any time after 36 months to require NAS to repurchase the share for a fair market value, provided that no material default by DFG ha

In a judgment published on 6 May 2016, the Planning Court of the High Court of Justice quashed a decision of the Planning Inspector to allow planning permission for the development by Cammell Laird of an on-shore office and warehouse building to serve as a marine operations and maintenance facility for windfarms in Liverpool Bay and on the Irish Sea. The Claimants, representing businesses and residents in the locality of the development, including a charter boat operator, arg

“Let a hundred flowers bloom” Mao Zedong Unsurprisingly unnoticed by a press dominated by the big themes of the UK’s relationship with Europe, the European Parliament on 28 April approved the European Council’s common position on the so-called “technical pillar” of the Fourth Railway Package. While this may seem to some another instance of Brussels gobbledegook, what it signifies is that progress is being made towards harmonising safety authorisations across Europe for signal

The recent (March 2016) Tribunal ruling concerning the private use of a yacht provides a salutary reminder (if one were needed) of the implications of using privately a yacht owned by a company. The yacht “SPACE RACE” was purchased by a company, Blue Yearnings Ltd, whose sole director was a Mr Jonathan Blanshard. The case concerned an appeal against a HMRC decision issued in November 2014 that Blue Yearnings Ltd was liable to pay Class 1 National Insurance contributions of

The High Court’s ruling this month (April 2016) in a claim for judicial review brought by Norfolk landowners Mr Timothy Charles Harris and Mrs Angelika Harris, brings into relief the statutory duties of the Broads Authority and its role as guardians of the unique Broads environment and as a navigation authority. The claim for judicial review challenged a resolution of the Broads Authority passed in January 2015 by which the Authority decided, among other things, that the bra

The recent Commercial Court judgment in the case of Alan Ramsay Sales & Marketing Ltd v Typhoo Tea Limited, reported on 8 March 2016, highlights the importance of having a clear written agreement setting out the terms of the agency and, in particular, the manner in which it may be terminated. The judgment is interesting for a number of reasons, not least in that it considers in some detail two areas of the law that are often troublesome for lawyers and claimants alike, namel

On 9 March 2016 the UK’s Supreme Court gave judgment in the long-running dispute between Magmatic Limited (“Magmatic”), the makers of the children’s ride-on suitcase known as a ‘Trunki’, and, PMS International Group Plc (“PMS”) the manufacturers of a rival product, the ‘Kiddee’. The judgment is a significant one, and is expected to have wider long-term implications in the sphere of intellectual property rights, specifically, protection of intellectual property rights afforded

Seafarers, airline pilots, international management consultants, salesmen, and the like often perform their duties in multiple locations, working outside of their “normal” work base, or sometimes without an easily discernible “normal” base. Such peripatetic workers can sometimes become the object of legal-head scratching in circumstances where their entitlement, or otherwise, to certain statutory rights comes into question, and the spotlight fell recently on the UK’s pension