16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

“The right for anyone to communicate confidentially with their lawyer is a fundamental part of our legal system and we want to ensure that this right is protected for all of us, including corporations” : Joe Egan, Law Society President.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

In Seadrill Ghana Operations Limited v Tullow Ghana Limited [2018] EWHC 1640 (Comm), the English High Court held that for a party to rely on a force majeure event to terminate a contract, that party’s failure to perform must be caused solely by the force majeure event.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

The Court of Appeal has upheld the decision at first instance in AAA & Others v Unilever PLC and Unilever Tea Kenya Limited [2018] EWCA Civ 1532. Following on from our June 2018 Bulletin in which we discussed the decision in Okpabi v Royal Dutch Shell PLC [2018] EWCA Civ 191, this case also concerns the liability of parent companies as anchor defendants for acts or omissions associated with subsidiaries within the group which are registered abroad.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

In NF Football Investments Limited and another v NFFC Group Holdings Limited and another [2018] EWHC 1346 (Ch), NF Football Investments (NF) entered into a share purchase agreement with NFF Group Holdings (NFF) by which NF purchased all the shares in Nottingham Forest Football Club from NFF. During the due diligence ahead of the agreement, NFF represented that the liabilities of the Club were about £6.5 million whereas NF argued that the true liabilities of the Club were over £10 million. NF claimed that NFF had misrepresented the liabilities and therefore owed NF the difference. NFF sought summary judgment dismissing the claim by NF.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision of the Technology and Construction Court that parties to a construction contract can agree how to allocate the risk of concurrent delay to the works and exclude the prevention principle: North Midland Building Limited v Cyden Homes Limited [2018] EWCA Civ 1744.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

Generally speaking, clients have the right to speak freely and openly with their lawyer(s) without fearing any repercussions, which is why the law on privilege is so important. But what happens when lawyers make a mistake and privileged information is disclosed to the other side? Here we look at how the court exercised its equitable jurisdiction in Single Buoy Moorings Inc v Aspen Insurance UK Limited [2018] EWHC 1763 (Comm) upon hearing two applications by the Defendant relating to disclosure and privilege.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

In our February 2018 Bulletin, we reported on three recent cases which applied the test for the implication of terms set out in Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd and another [2015] UKSC 72. Since then, the Court of Appeal has given judgment in another two cases - Bou-Simon v BGC Brokers LP [2018] EWCA Civ 1525 and JN Hipwell & Son v Szurek [2018] EWCA Civ 674 – providing further guidance on the process trial judges should adopt on the implication of terms. In Bou-Simon, the Court of Appeal also had cause to consider when and what, if any, use can be made of words deleted or omitted in earlier versions of an agreement in the implication process while in JN Hipwell & Son, the interaction between Entire Agreement clauses and the implication of terms was considered.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

With strategic challenges to a party’s proposed arbitrator becoming more common, the Court of Appeal has recently considered apparent bias and conflicts of interest in arbitrator appointments in the case of Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 817.

16-10-2018 / 能源及基础设施

The Court of Appeal decisions in two recent cases clarify the position as to when an exclusion clause might be subjected to UCTA’s reasonableness test and also give further guidance as to when a clause will be deemed unreasonable and, therefore, unenforceable.