Legal News

The trend towards full disclosure and openness continues unabated in business, and new regulations are being mooted which will increase the amount of disclosure required of UK-registered companies regarding their principals. Currently, even the smallest...

Many directors of companies are also trustees of the company pension scheme. Sometimes, their duties as a director and as a scheme trustee can be difficult to reconcile. In a recent case, a company alleged that two directors who were trustees of the firm's...

When a person is appointed executor of an estate, they are given a reasonable period to progress the estate administration but cannot procrastinate without adverse consequences being likely. When a woman died intestate in 2012, she left behind a house and...

A wealthy Omani man who failed to pay to his ex-wife the financial settlement ordered by the court, or to cooperate with disclosure orders, faces arrest if he attempts to return to the UK. When the couple's marriage broke up, they were divorced under Omani...

It is common in legal disputes for the two sides to agree to suspend the court proceedings for a period so that they can get as much agreed between them as possible, and gather their evidence and prepare their arguments over what remains in dispute without...

Insolvencies are seldom happy periods for any of those involved and great care must be taken by those who deal with the insolvency proceedings to ensure they do their work in a way that correctly balances the interests of the creditors and the insolvent...

The legal ownership of property is not always the same as the beneficial ownership and disputes can arise when no documentation is executed to show the two are different. Such was the case in a recent dispute which occurred after a couple who had two...

On 25 May 2018, the Data Protection Act 2018 came into force, incorporating the EU General Data Protection Regulation, ushering in a new era of personal data regulation in the UK. At the same time, the Data Protection (Charges and Information)...

A professionally drafted will is something every adult should have. Not only does it provide certainty as to who should inherit your possessions after your death, but it will also make things a lot easier for your executor at a time that is usually...

The process of divorce in the UK has for many years been seen as rather long-winded and tending to produce more conflict than need be. One of the reasons for this is that the grounds which demonstrate an 'irretrievable breakdown' of a marriage – the...

The law in the UK is not supportive of people who assist, however unwillingly, those they love who want to die. Although such wishes are often borne out of suffering years of intractable pain or disability, assisting the suicide of another remains a criminal...

Judgments for debt would hardly be worth having if there were no bailiffs to enforce them. However, as a High Court ruling made clear , they have to abide by stringent rules and do not have carte blanche to trample on debtors' rights. The case concerned a...

The quality of British justice is respected around the world – but there are inevitably occasions when judges overstep the mark. In a family case on point, a mother had her two young children taken into care after a judge dismissed out of hand...

The impossibility of asking a deceased person what their real intentions were makes the value of these being clear before death quite obvious, as a recent case shows. It involved an elderly widow who died in 2016. After her death, her family discovered an...

Businesses that deal or hope to deal with one another often have to put security concerns to one side and share their confidential information. As a High Court case underlined, however, such exchanges should always be subject to a professionally drafted...

The welfare of children is always top of the list of priorities of the Family Court when making arrangements following the break-up of a family. This can be especially difficult where the parents are from different countries, as shown by a recent case in...

When your spouse's lack of attention to making a will causes issues, faking one is definitely not a good idea, as a Kent woman found out recently. Her husband died in 2013 leaving various properties in Spain and a flat in England, but no will. The woman...

Divorcing couples can sometimes achieve savings of both time and money by opting for arbitration, rather than court proceedings, as a means of resolving any financial disputes. However, as a guideline High Court case underlined , arbitration has its...

A limited company has a legal personality all of its own, but an unincorporated firm does not. As a High Court ruling in respect of a domestic building dispute showed , that distinction can in some cases be a crucial one. A couple who were to move into a...

It is commonplace for people to appoint siblings or friends as their executors. When they do and they are of a similar age, there is a risk that when the person who has made the will dies, the proposed executor will have predeceased them or lack the mental...

The application of the 'sharing principle' to big money divorces is more than a matter of simple mathematics, and what family judges aim to achieve is a broadly fair outcome for both sides. That was certainly so in one case in which the Court of Appeal...

The existence of oral agreements is easily asserted but very hard to prove, and that is one good reason why important deals should be in writing and professionally drafted with the benefit of legal advice. In a case on point, a businessman received nothing...

You may have good reasons for writing close relatives out of your will but, as any lawyer will tell you, the consequence of doing so can be family discord after you are gone. That was certainly so in one case concerning a father who disinherited his...

Government regulatory decisions can have an instant and catastrophic impact on businesses, but prompt legal action can ensure that such damage is not unfairly inflicted. The point was made in the case of a company whose licence to warehouse duty suspended...

Although commercial surrogacy businesses have long been banned in the UK, the Court of Appeal recently ruled that a clinical negligence victim would not be breaking the law were she to enter into such an arrangement in California, where a more liberal...