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…
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…
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust £325,000 following a serious breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. The fine related to the discovery of highly sensitive personal data belonging to tens of…
Businesses should be made aware that making misleading claims in their advertising is illegal. The High Court, in judicial review proceedings, has recently held that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was entitled to find that a company had breached the…
In May 2011, a new law came into force requiring businesses to obtain consent from visitors to their websites to store or retrieve usage information from users' computers or mobile devices. Many businesses use cookies (small files that a website…
When a man was worried that his creditors would not approve his proposals for an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), he took innovative steps to ensure that when the meeting of creditors was held a majority of them voted for it…
A recent case dealt with the thankfully rare circumstance of someone buying a property without knowing that the vendor is a bankrupt. When the buyer bought the property, the search of the title at the Land Registry did not show…
A company director who was misled into signing a guarantee over a lease, when he thought he was merely witnessing his fellow director’s signature, has escaped liability under the guarantee. Joshua Yardley signed the guarantee, over a 35-year lease on…
When a mortgage brokerage agrees to arrange finance for a customer, does that mean that it has provided a guarantee that the required funding will be found? This question was the subject of a recent case in the Court of…
When a transaction occurred that should have aroused suspicion, the subsequent investigation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) led to fines for three of the people involved. The transaction involved the sale of a 13.3 per cent holding in pub…
