For many clients, one of the most surprising and daunting aspects of litigation is the sheer volume of paperwork. To assist the court, documents are collated, tabulated, indexed, paginated, and duplicated many times over, and then transported across the city and beyond, all in anticipation of debates which may be decided in a matter of minutes in the court room. The large cost of materials and labour can unsurprisingly appear wasteful to a new litigant, both economically and environmentally, given the availability of technology which could significantly reduce the need for these costs....
Many commercial contracts contain a clause to the effect that any variations or amendments to the contract must be in writing. Parties to commercial agreements favour such clauses because they promote certainty: the parties know what they have to do to amend the contract and disputes about oral discussions are in theory avoided....
One of the main objectives of Clarkslegal’s dispute resolution team is to help our clients resolve their disputes as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. A constant pressure we have to factor into our service is the increasing cost of resolving disputes as successive governments seek to increase Court fees....
Commercial contracts often include obligations carrying the qualification “as soon as reasonably practicable”. A case earlier this month has given some insight into how the courts will interpret and apply such obligations. ...
The Court of Appeal has allowed the appeal in Sugar Hut Group –v- AJ Insurance, thereby allowing parties more confidence in predicting the consequences of a Part 36 offer. The case concerned a claim for damages arising from a fire at a nightclub that had featured prominently in “The Only Way is Essex”....
From 1 February 2016, landlords of residential properties are now required to carry out ‘right to rent’ checks on prospective tenants to ensure that they have the right to live in the UK before granting a tenancy. Failure to carry out the requisite checks can leave landlords liable to pay a fine of up to £3,000....
Clarkslegal has produced a guide on ‘What to expect for 2016’ which clearly sets out all the forthcoming legislative changes, which we hope you find useful in planning your year ahead. ...
In the recent case of RegioPost GmbH v Stadt Landau in der Pfalz, the European Court of Justice has decided that excluding a bidder from a tender who had failed to complete a declaration confirming that it would pay minimum wage to its workers did not constitute a breach of European public procurement law. ...
As any commercial landlord or tenant knows, rent is usually payable quarterly in advance. However what happens if you have paid rent for a full quarter but you are able to end your lease by serving a break notice that takes effect during the course of that quarter. Are you entitled to the return of rent relating to the period after the end of the lease?...
One of the most interesting procurement decisions to come out of the court in recent months is that of Woods Building Services v Milton Keynes Council. ...
It is common to see clauses in commercial contracts which seek to fix the damages which will be payable if one party breaches their contractual obligations. Sometimes the figures will be broadly what the parties would expect the financial loss caused by the breach to be. In other cases, the figures will be widely excessive and the suspicion will be that the person drafting the contract was seeking to impose an additional incentive on the other party to comply with the terms of the contract to avoid being heavily penalised....
It is common, particularly following termination of an agency agreement, for agents and principals to become involved in disputes over the commission which the agent is entitled to be paid. ...
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 which came into force on 1 October 2015 marks one of the biggest overhauls of consumer law in recent years. The aim of the new Act is to make the law clearer and easier to understand. ...
Residential landlords need to be aware of the changes to section 21 notices which are coming into force from 1 October 2015....
The growth of the internet and the readily accessibility of platforms for public comment have made it easier than ever for disgruntled or vindictive ex-employees to make disparaging comments about their former employer and colleagues. ...
The long running case of Tardios & St John’s Preparatory and Senior School –v- Pammela Linton (aka Patricia Carpenter) raised a number of interesting issues both from an education and defamation perspective. ...
The whistleblowing charity, Public Concern at Work, has published this week some YouGov survey results showing that, surprisingly, only 48 per cent of workers in a representative sample said their workplace had a whistleblowing policy. This was despite the fact that 81 percent of workers surveyed said they would raise a concern about possible corruption, danger or serious malpractice at work. In the last two years, 11 per cent of workers said they had such concerns. Of those, 59 percent had raised them with their employer....
What is click wrapping?...
Two recent cases, one in Supreme Court and the other in the High Court give an interesting illustration of the approach taken to interpret a contract. Although in each case the court applied the same legal test, it reached the opposite result. ...
Agency arrangements often arise informally, and we are sometimes consulted by agents and principals who are not sure whether they fall within the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 (the Regulations) or not. ...