In a recent First-tier Tribunal Tax Chamber case it was held that HMRC regulations which require the electronic filing of VAT returns were discriminatory. The full decision (which runs to some 154 pages) can be found here.The electronic filing of VAT returns was made compulsory for all businesses with a turnover of over £100,000, and any newly registered business, with effect from 1 April 2010 and for all businesses with effect from 1 April 2012 ...
Cadbury has lost a five-year legal battle with Swiss rival Nestlé. This week the Court of Appeal overturned a previous decision of the High Court that gave Cadbury an exclusive right to the famous purple colour it uses for its chocolate wrappers. Cadbury began marketing Dairy Milk in a pale mauve colour in 1905 but it wasn’t until 1920 that its full range of Dairy Milk became purple ...
John Grimes Partnership Ltd v Gubbins [2013] EWCA Civ 37 involved a dispute about a property development. Mr Gubbins engaged the John Grimes Partnership Ltd to design a road over land on which he intended to develop residential properties. An express term of the contract between the parties was that the works would be completed by March 2007. However, in February 2008 there was still work to be done so Mr Gubbins engaged an alternative engineer to complete the work ...
Player power, loyalty and respect of contracts has increasingly made media headlines, demonstrated predominantly this summer with Luis Suarez of Liverpool FC and Manchester United's Wayne Rooney. As widely reported, Arsenal FC made an infamous bid of £40,000,001.00 to Liverpool for the transfer of the registration of Suarez to Arsenal ...
A Q&A guide to dispute resolution law in the United Arab Emirates.The country-specific Q&A gives a structured overview of the key practical issues concerning dispute resolution in this jurisdiction, including court procedures; fees and funding; interim remedies (including attachment orders); disclosure; expert evidence; appeals; class actions; enforcement; cross-border issues; the use of ADR; and any reform proposals. Main dispute resolution methods1 ...
Gareth Bale has been in the news last week for transferring to Real Madrid in a record £85m deal. Less well known is that at the beginning of August he successfully registered as a UK trade mark a logo based on his signature goal celebration. His Eleven of Hearts logo is registered against several classes of goods including precious metals, jewellery, clothing, footwear and even parasols and walking sticks ...
In commercial contracts there is often a ‘waterfall’ clause, which provides for a dispute escalation process prior to the commencement of formal legal proceedings, leaving litigation as the last resort. Such clauses were determined to be legally binding in Cable & Wireless Plc v IBM United Kingdom Ltd [2002] EWHC 2059 (Comm) ...
In recent years, NASA has spent millions, if not billions, of dollars developing what they call “US commercial crew space capabilities” – in ordinary terms they want to make it easier to access the International Space Station from Earth. In trying to achieve this aim they have entered into various commercial agreements under the National Aeronatics and Space Act, known as Space Act Agreements (SAAs), instead of using more traditional form commercial contracts ...
Guarantees are a common feature in commercial leases. A guarantor will guarantee a tenant’s obligations under a lease, for example the payment of rent. This provides security to the landlord and can help to maintain continuity of rental income regardless of the default or insolvency of the tenant. However, problems can arise with enforcement of guarantees where the obligations being guaranteed have been changed without the guarantor’s consent ...
The insolvency of one or other of the parties to a dispute has become commonplace in recent times, particularly in construction related disputes. Practitioners are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the implications of insolvency on procedure and the potential remedies available ...
Internal investigations are a central part of the crisis management response, and whilst the form and structure of the investigation will depend on the type of crisis, investigations will generally focus on identifying root causes and those with responsibility for the crisis ...
Statute of limitations for appeal of public auction contractsThe Higher Commercial Court recently clarified several issues relating to the statute of limitations for appeals of public auction contracts. (Higher Commercial Court of Ukraine Resolution 10 ("On Certain Practical Issues of Statute of Limitation Application"), May 29 2013 ...
The Minister of Finance has issued Regulation No. 37/PMK.04/2013 on Duty-Free Shops on 27 February 2013, which implements Article 48 of Government Regulation No. 32 of 2009 on Bonded Storehouses (Tempat Penimbunan Berikat). The Regulation will effectively be applied 90 days since the issuance date ...
While arbitration offers an excellent means for parties to get their disputes settled faster than in traditional courts, how you draft the arbitration clause in a document is critically important for a positive outcome – should a dispute arise. Legal agreements often have a clause indicating that parties agree to settle any disputes arising from the arrangement in arbitration. The text for this clause is frequently supplied by a local arbitration institute ...
Counterfeiting continues to make the news. Locally, we’ve just had a report of a R10 million bust in the Vereeniging area, during which fake soaps, shampoos, clothing and bags were seized, and seven suspects from Malawi, Mozambique and China (no surprises there), were taken into custody.But we are increasingly getting reports of counterfeiting in product areas that go way beyond the traditional stomping ground of FMCG and luxury goods ...
We recently had a Namibian court decision in a passing off matter, in the case of Mega Power Centre CC t/a Talisman Plant and Tool Hire v Talisman Franchise Operations (Pty) Ltd. The decision is interesting for a number of reasons. First, passing off cases are fairly rare, so any new decision is welcome ...
There were two recent decisions – one in the USA and one in the UK – which dealt with the important but seldom-discussed concept of patent exhaustion. Patent exhaustion in essence means this: the initial authorised sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item, for the reason that the owner of the patent (the patentee) has been rewarded for its ingenuity by that sale ...
Legal succession of banksUkrainian legislation prescribes a special reorganisation procedure for banks that, among other things, requires banks to:• develop a reorganisation plan;• obtain approval for internal statute changes from the National Bank of Ukraine; and• conduct an audit to ensure the correctness of transfers (for mergers and acquisitions) or the demerger balance sheet (for spin-offs and transfers) ...
IntroductionIn the course of implementing the visa liberalisation regime with the European Union, Parliament recently passed several anti-corruption laws, including the Law on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities. The law introduced amendments to the Criminal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Law on Principles of Prevention and Combating Corruption and the Law on Ensuring the Safety of Those Involved in Criminal Proceedings ...
Here are select March 2013 rulings of the Philippine Supreme Court on legal and judicial ethics:Attorney; a lawyer shall not assist in the unauthorized practice of law. Atty. Bancolo admitted that the Complaint he filed for a former client before the Office of the Ombudsman was signed in his name by a secretary of his law office ...
1 LegislationWhat legislation is applicable to insolvencies and reorganisations? What criteria are applied in your country to determine if a debtor is insolvent? The applicable law is Republic Act No. 10142, known as the Financial Rehabilitation and Insolvency Act of 2010 (FRIA). The FRIA took effect on 18 July 2010 ...
Important Considerations In Drafting An Arbitration Provision: With the continuing increase in cross-border investments, it bears reminding that companies must plan for the eventuality that parties may not see eye-to-eye in the future – something known but not always implemented ...
