Commercial analysis: The English High Court has provided further guidance on the interpretation of ‘no waiver’ clauses in a recent decision. The backdrop to this decision was a sanctions related dispute about the termination of a currency swap agreement between two banks, one of which was Russian, the other English. The agreement had a dispute resolution clause where the forum was arbitration unless the English bank gave notice that a dispute should be heard by the English courts. Pamela Vassil, lawyer at A&O Shearman, examines the court’s decision.

Chapter III of Part VI of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 (IHTA 1984) allows the ‘appropriate person’ to make a claim to reduce the chargeable value of 'all the qualifying investments comprised in a person's estate immediately before his death which are sold by the appropriate person within the period of twelve months immediately following the date of the death' by an amount equal to the loss on that sale (or those sales, if more than one). IHTA 1984, s 179(1) sets out how the loss on sale is calculated. Broadly, that is the difference between the aggregate value of those qualifying

It is not possible to sever the legal joint tenancy. The legal title will therefore pass to the two surviving joint tenants. See: • Trusts of land—property • Severance of a joint tenancy Nor can the deceased’s beneficial joint tenancy be severed after his/her death.

The general rule is that, unless expressly authorised to act by majority, trustees must act unanimously. However, personal representatives are generally treated differently. In particular, co-executors are treated in law as an individual person, such that, as a general rule, a power given to co-executors will be regarded as exercisable jointly and severally and by the survivor. Thus, the act of one joint executor is regarded as to the act of all and is binding. This principle that the act of one representative is the act of all applies to the sale or gift of pure personality. There are, however, exceptions to this general rule,

We have assumed that: • all three individuals are adult and have mental capacity to take a grant of letters of administration • the grant of letters of administration issued to the sole administrator was not limited The Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987 (NCPR 1987), SI 1987/2024, r 22 sets out the order of priority for obtaining a grant of letters of administration where the deceased died intestate. Where there is no surviving spouse or civil partner (or they have been cleared off), all the children of the deceased have priority to take out the grant and are entitled in the same degree (NCPR 1987, SI 1987/2024, r 22(1)(b)). Where there are two or more people entitled in the same degree in an intestacy situation,

The standard rules governing the appropriate court in which to make an application pursuant to CPR 23 are set out in CPR 23.2, CPR PD 23A, para 5.1 and CPR PD 2C, para 5.1–CPR PD 2C, para 5.3. This flowchart provides

For a high-level summary of the structure and hierarchy of civil courts in England and Wales, see: Courts and Tribunals Judiciary—Structure of Courts and Tribunals System. A number of the civil courts have published a court guide, which sets out how business in that particular court is to be conducted (in addition to guidance given in the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR)). For more information, see Practice Note: Court guides and other guidance. For information on: • claims which must be issued in the County Court, see Practice Note: Starting civil claims in the County Court • commencing a claim under CPR 8 (alternative procedure for claims where there is no substantial dispute of fact), see Practice Note: CPR Part 8 claims (alternative procedure for claims) High Court or the County Court? Whether a claim should be issued in the High Court or the County Court is largely a question of the value of the claim. This Practice Note considers starting a claim under CPR 7. The rules dealing with where to start a claim

In both cases, the trespassers would lose their right to apply to be registered as proprietor of the land through adverse possession. We assume for the purposes of this Q&A that the land is registered (over 85% of England and Wales is registered, in over 25 million titles). The terms ‘owner’ and ‘squatter’ are used for the registered proprietor and the person seeking title to the land respectively. Since the coming into force of the Land Registration Act 2002 (LRA 2002), the principles and procedure by which title to registered land can be acquired by adverse possession are: • adverse possession for 12 years of itself does not affect the owner’s title • after 10 years’ adverse possession, the squatter is entitled to

For the purposes of this Q&A, we have assumed that the settlement in question was originally established as an accumulation and maintenance settlement under the legislative rules that existed prior to 22 March 2006, see Practice Note: Accumulation and maintenance trusts—IHT [Archived]. We have also assumed that the beneficiaries all have an interest in possession in the trust income. Strictly speaking, the trustees are

On a restructuring of any trust, there may be an actual or deemed disposal of assets. In particular, the trustees will need to consider the potential tax implications of a disposal of the company shares by the trustees and also a deemed or actual disposal of the residential property, including in particular inheritance tax, capital gains tax and stamp duty land tax. The restructure

This Q&A refers you to Practice Note: IHT—use of discretionary Will trusts and in particular, the following extract: 'The following principles should be borne in mind when considering whether relief under IHTA 1984, s 144 applies: ...distributions must be within trustees’ powers’ In particular, where residue is settled by a Will, HMRC used to take a view that there could be no distribution out of the property for the purposes of section 144 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 (IHTA 1984) until either: • the estate administration was complete, or • the property concerned was assented to the trustees by the personal representatives (PRs) HMRC’s original argument was that administration could not be completed as to part of a residuary estate by an assent, while the balance of

In responding to this Q&A we have assumed that the trustees are all UK residents. Further, we have not considered the inheritance tax implications of the arrangement. The treatment of the profit element of the loan will depend on the following factors: • the terms of the loan • the identity of the borrower Terms of the loan In many cases, the profit arising on a loan will be treated as interest and chargeable to income tax, however the profit is characterised in the loan agreement. Anti-avoidance provisions contained in the Income Tax Act 2007, ss 809CZA–809CZC