Summary A fair-minded observer would not conclude that there was a real possibility that a judge, who had made findings adverse to the first defendant when finding that he was in contempt of court, would be biased when deciding the issues at trial. In any event, the first defendant had...

Summary Where an Italian national domiciled in England made two wills, an earlier one in England and a later one in Italy, the former prevailed where the latter did not revoke it. That result was primarily because of the deceased's domicile, which rendered Italian law irrelevant. However, although different, the...

Summary The "Dicey rule", arising from the operation of common law and the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, applied to foreign judgments in avoidance proceedings in insolvency. Facts In conjoined appeals brought by the appellants (E and G) against decisions of the Court of Appeal (Rubin v Eurofinance SA [2010] EWCA...

Summary Where a deed permitted the owner of a building to enter upon a neighbouring property to install windows, that did not permit the erection of scaffolding on the neighbouring land in order to take down a wall and replace it with glass panels. That was not changed by describing...

Summary Where a commercial lease provided a tenant with the full term in which to carry out required reinstatement works to the property, a surrender of the lease before expiry of the term released the potential liability. Also, the processes required by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 s.18(1) had to...

Summary Properties used entirely for commercial purposes were not "house[s] reasonably so called" for the purposes of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 s.2(1), whatever their original design or current appearance, or the fact that they might look like houses and might be referred to as houses for some purposes. Facts...

Summary A defendant who had breached the terms of a freezing injunction by causing his companies to make pledges to Russian banks was ordered to use his best endeavours to intervene in any enforcement proceedings on the pledges to ensure that the Russian court was informed that the pledges had...

Summary Insurers were liable to indemnify a home-owner under the terms of an insurance policy for fire damage to his property where the likely cause of the fire was a cigarette accidentally discarded by a lodger, as opposed to the home owner's spouse deliberately starting the fire. Facts The claimant...

Summary A claim that the defendants had dishonestly assisted a third party in committing a breach of fiduciary duty represented an abuse of process given that the relevant factual allegations had been determined against the claimant in arbitration proceedings between it and the third party. There could be no rule...