Welcome to the first deBriefed of 2025. In March, the Group bade farewell to John Randall KC who retired following 44 years at the bar, in a remarkable career. During the month we were delighted to announce that Robert Mundy KC became the Group’s newest silk.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Our free Commercial Litigation half day seminar is taking place on 7 May 2025. Please click here for the programme and to book.
Save the Date – 18th June – Annual Insolvency Conference, full details for this event will be released shortly.
PROPERTY
Amanprit Kaur was successful in making an application under CPR 70.2A for the enforcement of various injunction orders made against disobedient parties in a boundary dispute. Following a 4-day trial, Amanprit was successful on behalf of the Claimants and obtained injunctions against the Defendants, which then had to be enforced.
In January 2025, Michelle Caney secured a 3 year injunction against Persons Unknown, to protect an important service station from unauthorised encampments and dangerous activities such as the syphoning of fuel. In a departure from the court’s current tendency to impose annual reviews in such orders following Wolverhampton City Council v London Gypsies and Travellers [2023] UKSC 47, Michelle persuaded the High Court that an 18 month review period would be apposite in this case.
In another of Michelle’s cases, the Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal in Scalora v Clarion Housing Association Limited [2024] EWHC 1414, bringing an end to a £1.1m claim for unlawful eviction. The 9-day trial, which generated significant media attention, involved a tenant who alleged that his flat had been illegally sublet whilst he was stranded abroad during the pandemic. The Court of Appeal found no grounds to interfere with the trial judge’s conclusion that the Appellant was thoroughly dishonest in bringing the claim, resulting in an indemnity costs order to mark the court’s disapproval for his conduct. Michelle Caney acted on behalf of the Respondent.
Raghav Trivedi has secured a successful result for his client in a recent complex proprietary estoppel case following a three-day preliminary issues trial at the High Court in Birmingham. The claim involved the alleged making of a representation between a mother and her sons.
COMMERCIAL
Ali Tabari delivered a recorded seminar on the changes to CPR 25 (taking effect on 6 April 2025).
Iqbal Mohammed appeared in a 4-day trial of a partnership dispute, where the Defendant sold half his business to the Claimant to operate under a partnership. The Defendant then purported to terminate the partnership and continue trading. The Defendant then died from Covid and the Claimant sued the estate for the partnership assets and an account.
INSOLVENCY
Ali Tabari appeared for the successful respondent in an appeal against the admissions of its proof of debt in the liquidation of an energy broker (GET Generation Ltd). The appeal was brought by another creditor, owned and operated by the company’s controlling mind, and who had proposed the appointment of alternative liquidators; the appeals would determine whose choice of office-holder would prevail. At the hearing before HHJ Williams, sitting as a High Court Judge, the issues were (1) who bore the burden of proof on such an appeal, (2) what form of hearing the appeal would take, and (3) whether on the facts the appeal was made out. Ali’s client succeeded on each of the issues, and the appeal was dismissed, with an order for the payment of all its costs.”
NOTABLE DECISIONS
Insolvency
El Husseiny v Invest Bank [2025] UKSC 4, which confirms that s.423 Insolvency Act 1986 is meant to be constructed widely and potentially captures multi-part transactions, and transactions involving legal entities which are beneficially owned or controlled by the defendant.
Purkiss v Kennedy [2025] EWCA Civ 268, in which the Court of Appeal confirmed that the entry into a tax avoidance scheme is not a transaction for a prohibited purpose under s.423 IA.
Property
Brown v Ridley [2025] UKSC 7, the UKSC preferred ‘a more lenient’ construction of 5(4)(c) of Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2022, meaning that the period of reasonable belief relied on by a claimant for adverse possession can be any period of at least 10 years within the potentially longer period of adverse possession.
Costs
Vardy v Rooney [2025] EWHC 851 (KB), Cavanagh J upheld a decision that estimating reasonable and proportionate costs in the precedent H, as opposed to stating what was in fact spent or to be spent by the client, was not improper or unreasonable under CPR 44.11(1)(b).
Singh & Ors v Ingram [2025] EWCA Civ 264, A CFA could apply retrospectively to include previous incurred costs and there was no requirement that particular words were used in the agreement.
Litigation
Hazel Boyd v Debbie Hughes [2025] EWHC 435 (KB), Cotter J deprecated the issue of proceedings in the RCJ instead of either the County Court (based on value) or the local District Registry. The judge rejected London-centric arguments which included better judges or facilities (see paras 326-341).
DKH Retail Limited & Ors v City Football Group Limited [2024] EWHC 3231 (Ch), Miles J flexed the court’s new powers of ordering compulsory mediation in a trademark dispute (ieCPR 3.1(1)(o)).
AND FINALLY…
Counsel’s Corner
Simon Clegg on his love of music says “I always have a music spring clean. When I listened to vinyl and then CDs it was straightforward. LPs and CDs could be physically rearranged so that different albums were to hand. Now that I stream, it is more difficult. You can’t physically move the music source. Further there is an algorithm which wants to control your listening and which needs its mind shifting. So a spring cleans means a mental reset. Three random albums thrown up my spring clean, with seasonal relevance, from different genres: Talk Talk, The Colour of Spring; Frank Sinatra, Songs for Swinging Lovers; Mozart, Spring Quartet, Takacs Quartet.”
