Those with an interest in the Scottish political and legal system will have been aware since the middle of last year that there would at some point in the life of the current Scottish Parliament be a referendum on the question of Scottish independence. The current Scottish National Party (SNP) administration achieved, against all odds …
In this article, we discuss two recent decisions made in the course of the Leveson inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press in order to highlight the particular issues facing those involved in public inquiries – and the difficult balancing exercises faced by the chairman in protecting the interests of individuals and …
2012 began with news coverage of the PIP breast implants matter, throwing up an interesting mix of issues, including regulation of medical devices, the assessment of risk, criminal proceedings abroad, what constitutes a defective product and contract issues. There is already litigation underway in some jurisdictions, with perhaps more to follow. How these questions are …
A distribution agreement is an important legal instrument in the cross-border sale and distribution of all sorts of products (and related services). This article gives an overview of some of the legal issues relating to distribution agreements under Dutch law. The subjects discussed are especially useful to take into account when doing business with suppliers/manufacturers …
Imagine your company’s employees are the target of a campaign of activist intimidation, or members of your board are being subjected to aggressive door-stepping by the press. What could you do to protect them? What legal recourse would the victim or your company have?
The fallout from the collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme has generated both headlines and interesting legal issues. InMadoff Securities International Ltd v Raven & ors [2011], Flaux J considered a number of points of general interest. In particular, he provided important guidance on the extent to which claimants can use ‘anchor defendants’ to give …
In the first part of this article, the authors looked at the trade in counterfeit goods in the context of the massive changes taking place in the world economy and suggested that China’s current pre-eminence as the major source of the world’s counterfeits might come under threat from other emerging ‘competitors’. In part two, they …
The Court of Appeal was recently given the opportunity to consider the remedy of rescission in Howard-Jones v Tate [2011] and in doing so, stressed a distinction between the remedies that are available to an innocent party where there has been a repudiatory breach of contract, and those situations where rescission ab initio will be …
We round up some of the most relevant and interesting developments from 2011 that may affect your business. 2011 CASE HIGHLIGHTS As ever, very few product liability cases made it to court, but of note this year are the following.
The impact of the Bribery Act 2010 has been a key focus for business across the UK over the past year. The Act came into force on 1 July 2011 in Scotland as it did in the rest of the UK, but there are real differences in how the new anti-corruption regime will operate north …
