Law Report: Case Summaries

THE following notes of judgments were prepared by the reporters of the All England Law Reports.

Rating

Steel Lining Ltd v Bibby & Co; CA (Balcombe, Simon Brown, Peter Gibson LJJ); 26 March 1993.

The statutory scheme contained in the Non-Domestic Rating (Collection and Enforcement) (Local Lists) Regulations 1989, and regs 14 and 15 in particular, giving a person aggrieved by a levy of distress the right to appeal to the magistrates' court, does not operate to oust the general jurisdiction of the county court to grant an injunction restraining the sale of goods seized, or to order the return of those goods, where the ratepayer has a common law right to the enjoyment of his goods save only to the extent that these are lawfully seized by due process of distress.

Simon Livesey (Hextall Erskine & Co) for the appellant; Nicholas Vallios QC and Robin Howard (Marian Small, Colchester) for the respondent.

Extradition

Re Anderson; QBD (DC) (Watkins LJ, Rougier J); 17 March 1993.

Under s 9(8) of the Extradition Act 1989, where the applicant was alleged to be unlawfully at large, an examining magistrate had to go through a two-stage process: first, he had to hear legal representations in order to satisfy himself that the alleged crime amounted to an extradition crime and, secondly, he had to receive evidence as to the factual matter of whether the applicant had been convicted of that alleged offence applying a criminal standard of proof since the person seeking extradition was effectively the prosecutor.

David Enoch (Ralph Haeems & Co) for the applicant; Paul Garlick (CPS) for the Greek government and Governor of Pentonville Prison.

Company

International Credit and Investment Co (Overseas) Ltd and ors v Adham andors; ChD (Harman J); 12 March 1993.

The English court was the appropriate forum for the resolution of an issue between various foreign parties as to the ownership of shares in a company incorporated under the laws of England even though its principal property and business were in Pakistan.

Charles Purle QC, Lawrence Cohen and Stephen Moverley Smith (Lovell White Durrant) for the plaintiffs; David Marks (Watson, Farley & Williams) for the third to sixth defendants; Lesle Kosmin (Cameron Markby Hewitt) for the receiver.

Sentence

R v Crawford; CA(Crim Div)(Lord Taylor of Gosforth CJ, Pill, Sedley JJ); 23 March 1993.

Activating a suspended sentence was not the passing of a sentence under s 1(2)(a) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, for s 23 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 made it clear that was so by enacting specifically that any order made by a court with respect to a suspended sentence was to be treated as a sentence passed on the offender by that court for the offence for which the suspended sentence was passed.

Isabelle Gillard (Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the appellant.

Procedure

Roebuck v Mungovin; CA (Ralph Gibson, Mann LJJ); 31 March 1993.

A defendant who had suffered long delay on the part of the plaintiff and had lost the right to strike out because of conduct giving rise to an estoppel, could not rely upon a period of further delay after estoppel to revive the preceding delay in order to invoke the court's jurisdiction to strike out unless he could prove that the further inordinate and inexcusable delay had resulted in such prejudice as to justify such an order.

John Toulmin QC and Anne Wakefield (Simpson Curtis, Leeds) for the plaintiff; Howard Elgot (Wansbroughs Willey Hargrave, Leeds) for the defendant.

Revenue

Marshall v Kerr (HMIT); CA (Balcombe, Simon Brown LJJ, Peter Gibson J); 3 March 1993.

An instrument of family arrangement, to which the Jersey executor and a UK resident beneficiary were party, varying the disposition of assets under a Jersey will to create a new trust, did not attract capital gains tax. The varied dispositions were deemed by what is now the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, s 62(4) and (6) to have been made by the deceased so that the UK resident beneficiary was not to be regarded as settlor by virtue of s 87.

Robert Venables QC and Robert Grierson (Wragge & Co) for the taxpayer; A W H Charles (Inland Revenue Solicitor) for the Crown.

Smith (HMIT) v Schofield; HL (Lord Templeman, Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle, Lord Mustill and Lord Woolf); 11 March 1993.

Indexation allowance introduced by the Finance Act 1982 was to be applied where an asset was acquired in the 1950s and disposed of in 1987 before applying straight-line apportionment of the gain under the Capital Gains Tax Act 1979, Sch 5, para 11 (broadly intended to exclude gains accruing before 6 April 1965).

Edward Nugee QC and Nicholas Warren (Inland Revenue Solicitor) for the Crown; Andrew Park QC and Stephen Allcock (Hewitson Becke & Shaw, Cambridge) for the taxpayer.