This case was a challenge by Resource against the University of Ulster regarding the winner of a competitive tender process did not meet the minimum financial requirement and that its tendered price was abnormally low.

The claim involved the hearing of the application to continue suspension of the award of this major contract.  It now proceeds to a substantial claim for damages.

Michael Bowsher QC was instructed by Tughans for Resource NI Ltd.

To read the full Judgment of the High Court of Northern Ireland please click here.

John Swift QC has announced his intention to conclude his membership with Monckton Chambers, effective from the end of the legal year in July 2013.

John was called to the Bar in 1965 and took Silk in 1981. He became a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1992.

John joined Monckton Chambers in 1967. From 1993 – 1998, he was the first Rail Regulator (head of non-Ministerial Government department) appointed under the Railways Act 1993. He resumed full time practice as a member of Monckton Chambers in 1999, where he was Head of Chambers until July 2001. For the past 14 years he has been involved as advocate and adviser in many of the most important cases and inquiries in the field of competition law and economic regulation, both in the UK and the EU.

Since 2009 John Swift has also been a panel member of the Cooperation and Competition Panel, now integrated within Monitor, which was established by the Department of Health to administer the principles and rules for cooperation and competition for NHS funded services. John has thus been involved in two of the critical Government programmes for reconstruction of the public sector.

Paul Lasok QC, Head of Monckton Chambers said: “John has had a long and distinguished career as one of the UK’s top competition lawyers. His legacy at Monckton Chambers is a new generation of competition lawyers following in his path. We all wish him well.”

Case C‑183/12 Ayadi v European Commission, judgment, 6 June 2013

The ECJ has upheld Mr Ayadi’s appeal against the General Court’s decision that he had no further interest in his action for annulment following his removal from the list of persons and entities considered to be associated with Al-Qaida or the Taliban under Regulation (EC) No 881/2002. The ECJ followed the decision of its Grand Chamber in Case C‑239/12 P Abdulrahim v Council and Commission and found that the definitive repeal of the regulation at issue, by the removal of Mr Ayadi’s name from the list at issue does not prevent an interest in bringing proceedings from continuing to exist so far as concerns the effects of the regulation at issue between the date of its entry into force and that of its repeal.

The case has been referred back to the GC.

Philip Moser QC acts for Mr Ayadi and Mr Abdulrahim.

To read the full judgment please click here

The Grand Chamber of the ECJ has held that the General Court erred in law in holding that, following his delisting, Mr Abdulrahim lacked any continuing interest in bringing annulment proceedings against the decision to place him on the terrorist list.

The case has been remitted to the General Court.

Philip Moser QC acted for Mr Abdulrahim.

To view the judgment, please click here.

The ECJ has just given judgment in Case C-651/11 X v Staatsecretaris van Financien, which concerns the eligibility of share sales to be treated as a transfer of a going concern under what is now Article 19 of the Principal VAT Directive (PVD).  The Netherlands, like the UK, treats the transfers of the “totality of assets or part thereof” (referred to as a “transfer of a going concern” in the UK) as not being a supply of goods or services: as a result, generally the transferor and transferee can treat expenses incurred in such transfers as part of the general overheads associated with its entire economic activity and deduct input tax on those expenses accordingly.

In the case referred to the ECJ by the Dutch Supreme Court, X claimed that the sale of the 30% shareholding that it held in company (‘A’)  was a transfer of the “totality of assets or part thereof” because X also carried out management work for A for consideration.   The ECJ agreed with the Dutch Government, supported by the UK, that the claim should be rejected.  The ECJ held that the transfer of shares could not be equated to the transfer of totality of assets or part thereof.  It was irrelevant that the sale was accompanied by the sale to the same purchaser by all the other shareholders of their shareholdings in company C. The management service did not assist X because it was not an autonomous undertaking which could be operated independently by the transferee as it ceased on the sale.   The ECJ noted a previous case (SKF) where it had held that the transfer of a 100% shareholding could amount to a transfer of assets, but it cast some doubt on the correctness of, and certainly the wider application of, that earlier ruling.

The ruling essentially confirms that pure share sales are unlikely to qualify as transfers as a going concern.  It may have implications for those advising on business asset sales involving share transfers and for a number of cases currently before the tax tribunals.

Raymond Hill and George Peretz acted for the United Kingdom in the ECJ.

To read the full judgement please click here

Monckton Chambers last night delivered a very successful and topical seminar on Financial Services.

The following Members gave four short talks on recent developments in financial services with a focus on the practical and commercial implications

• Tim Ward QC – The Icesave Case: The Future of Deposit Guarantee Schemes
• Kassie Smith QC – LIBOR:Civil and Competition Law Claims
• Saima Hanif- The New Regulatory Landscape
• Brendan McGurk – Financial Mis-Selling: Interest Rate Swaps: Claims

Chaired by Andrew Lidbetter of Herbert Smith Freehills

Monckton Chambers’ Ben Lask has successfully defended Ofsted in a claim for judicial review against a decision to take regulatory action against a childcare provider.

The claim raised issues as to the ambit of an expert regulator’s discretion, procedural fairness, and the circumstances in which regulatory action might engage a provider’s rights under Article 1, Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to peaceful enjoyment of property).

The High Court upheld Ofsted’s decisions in this case and dismissed the claim.

To read the full judgement please click here.

To read the full article in The Lawyer, please click here.

Monckton Chambers is honoured to have received three nominations for The Lawyer Awards 2013.

Monckton has been shortlisted for the ‘Chambers of the Year’ award, and Melanie Hall QC and Tim Ward QC have been shortlisted in the prestigious ‘Barrister of the Year’ category.

The awards ceremony will be held at Grosvenor House, Park Lane London on 25 June.

To read the full article in The Lawyer, please click here.

Kassie Smith QC and Elizabeth Kelsey are appearing in court for Greenpeace and the National Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUTFA), an association of small boat in-shore fishermen, in a case concerning the Government’s allocation of fishing quota. Greenpeace and NUTFA are supporting the Government’s decision to reallocate a small amount of quota from the over 10 metres fishing fleet to the under ten metres fleet.  The case is to be heard over three days in the High Court.  It raises issues of EU law, legitimate expectation as a matter of domestic public law and arguments under the ECHR.

The case has been featured in the following press articles:

BBC News

ITV News

Channel 4 News