The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued revised guidance on portable appliance testing in an attempt to dispel the myth that every portable electrical appliance in the workplace needs to be tested once a year. The HSE cautions that…
A case brought by a group of residents who live near a tip was recently heard by the Court of Appeal. The residents complained that the smell of the tip was a nuisance that blighted the everyday enjoyment of their…
A recent case in which the owners of a farm faced ruin because their property was saddled with an ancient responsibility to maintain the local church received a great deal of publicity, and has prompted a change in the applicable…
When an agricultural equipment manufacturer found that another company had registered a Community Trade Mark (CTM) that was similar to one of its own brand names, it opposed the registration, arguing that the company that had registered it had only…
The Court of Appeal recently ruled in a case which asked whether fatherhood is sufficient to warrant contact with a child and decided that the answer is ‘no’. The case was unusual. It involved a married couple who wanted to…
In 2009, the Government and the Association of British Insurers entered into an agreement, the Statement of Principles on the Provision of Flood Insurance, which committed home insurance providers to making flood insurance as widely available as possible. This agreement…
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have published new guidance intended to help personal service companies determine their correct employment status. HMRC will take a risk-based approach to consider how likely it is that they need to check whether IR35 applies…
A recent case dealt with the vexed question of how similar one’s advertising can be to the trade marks of another company before this constitutes an infringement of its intellectual property rights. When supermarket giant ASDA sought to break into…
A recent ruling in which ‘village green’ status was withdrawn from an area of land in Dorset highlights the fact that the granting of village green status does not necessarily mean that the land will be free from the risk…
A recent case shows how important it is to make sure that when a time limit for taking action is specified, it is not inadvertently breached. When a company was sold, the purchase agreement specified that some of the consideration…
