Tax analysis: In Muller UK and Ireland Group LLP and others, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appellants’ appeals against the Upper Tribunal (UT)’s decision that amortisation debits were correctly disallowed by HMRC.

IP analysis: This dispute concerns Thatchers’ claim that the UK trade mark registration for its lemon cider packaging was infringed by Aldi’s rival lemon cider product. The trade mark infringement claim was dismissed by the IPEC, but the Court of Appeal upheld Thatchers’ appeal based on section 10(3) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 (TMA 1994), holding that this was a classic ‘transfer of image’ case. The implication for brand owners if the case is not overturned by the Supreme Court is that protecting the packaging as well as the brand name of a product may make it easier to pursue copycats. Written by Milena Velikova, trade mark attorney at Lee & Thompson LLP.

Planning analysis: In Ocean One Hundred v New Forest National Park Authority, the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against the New Forest National Park Authority’s (the LPA’s) revocation of a certificate of lawfulness of existing use or development under section 193(7) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990). The central issue was whether the decision had been lawfully taken on the basis of a fair and balanced officer’s report. The court held that it had not. In a revocation process which turned on objective statutory tests, the appearance of bias on the part of the reporting officer tainted the report and the decision.

Tax analysis: In Panayi v HMRC and Redevco v HMRC, the Court of Appeal held that UK exit charge provisions (as they then were), which infringed EU freedom of establishment rights, could be remedied through a conforming interpretation permitting payment of the tax in five annual instalments. In respect of the Redevco appeal, the court also held that the Upper Tribunal (UT) had erred in remaking the First-tier Tax Tribunal (FTT)’s decision in relation to interest.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has announced that the Court of Appeal has upheld the sentences and convictions of Andrew Skeene and Omari Bowers, former directors of Global Forestry Investments. The pair were found guilty in May 2022 of three counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of misconduct in the course of winding up a company, resulting in 11-year prison sentences. The case, investigated by the SFO since 2015, involved a purportedly ethical investment scheme that defrauded investors of approximately £37m. This ruling follows hearings in February and November 2024 where Skeene and Bowers sought permission to appeal their sentences and convictions.

Financial Services analysis: In a judgment which reiterates the extent and latitude of the powers afforded to decision makers, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the High Court's dismissal of a claim for judicial review of the London Metal Exchange’s (LME) decision to cancel nickel trades (worth US$12bn) in response to unprecedented price surges in March 2022. The claimants asserted that LME’s decision to cancel all nickel trades entered before suspension of trading was unlawful and had caused them to incur very significant losses. The High Court dismissed the challenges on all grounds. LME’s decision to cancel trades had been made lawfully; the decision was made urgently, by a person with expert knowledge and with the intention of protecting the integrity of the market and its members. A further claim for breach of the claimants' rights to property under Article 1 Protocol 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights (A1P1) was also rejected. The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal on the basis that the cancellation was lawful and there was no breach of the claimants' A1P1 rights. Written by Lucy Tolond, partner at DWF Law LLP and Ryan Marwood, solicitor at DWF Law LLP.

TMT analysis: The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s finding that the statement complained of in this libel claim was a statement of opinion. The relevant statement was contained in a government press release issued with the ‘Prevent’ Duty Guidance which was part of a wider anti-terrorism strategy and it identified the claimant as someone who had publicly expressed views that were contrary to British values. The Court of Appeal also dismissed the Secretary of State’s application for permission to appeal the meaning of the relevant statement.

Local Government analysis: The claimant company sought to judicially review designations of two areas where either houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) or other accommodation had to be licensed. The designations were made by Luton Borough Council (Luton BC) pursuant to Parts 2 and 3 of the Housing Act 2004 (HA 2004). The Court of Appeal upheld the judgment that the claimant lacked sufficient interest in the matter to bring the claim. There was no arguable ground of challenge. Luton BC was entitled to take into account the information that it did in deciding whether the statutory criteria for making each of the two designations was satisfied. Written by Genevieve Screeche-Powell, barrister at Field Court Chambers.

Dispute Resolution analysis: The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and struck out the claim. Its key findings included: not every member of the representative class could show that they had an expectation of privacy and thus the representative claim, as a whole, failed. The assessment of the expectation of privacy involves a threshold of seriousness and will depend on the facts of each individual claimant’s case. Where a patient had placed relevant medical information in the public domain, a misuse of private information claim would not always succeed and so the same interest requirement for representative actions was not met; the judge’s refusal to allow Mr Prismall permission to amend the class was a case management decision made by the judge for good reasons. The amendments formulated for the appeal did not deal with the publication of relevant medical information on social media, which was the main reason the judge had found the lowest common denominator claimant had no real prospect of success. Written by Adele Ashton, partner at Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP.

Restructuring & Insolvency analysis: The long awaited decision from the Court of Appeal in Bakhshiyeva (in her capacity as the foreign representative of the OJSC Internationl Bank of Azerbaijan) v Sberbank of Russia, upholds the Gibbs rule (which in summary states a debt governed by English law cannot be discharged or compromised by a foreign insolvency proceeding). The ruling is of significance to financial institutions, creditors or any commercial party with contracts governed by English law.

The Court of Appeal upheld a finding that the quantification of the claimant's future loss of earnings should be on a “broad brush” approach rather than on the conventional multiplicand/multiplier approach, since the trial judge had been entitled to reach the conclusion that there were too many imponderables to enable him to conclude what the likely career pattern and earning capacity of the claimant would have been but for the accident that gave rise to her injuries.

Dispute Resolution analysis: The Court of Appeal decided that a significant penalty had to be applied to a solicitor who had signed off a bill of costs which breached the indemnity principle. It was irrelevant that she had entrusted the task of drawing the bill to an outsider, a costs draftsman, whom she blamed for getting it wrong. As a simple matter of agency law the solicitor was answerable for acts done by her representative. Accordingly, 50% of the correct bill was to be disallowed under CPR 44.11 which empowers the court to penalise unreasonable or improper conduct. Analysis by Professor Dominic Regan, City Law School, London, special advisor to the Association of Costs Lawyers.