The above Bill has been published on 21 July 2021. It will not be debated in Parliament until the Autumn.

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In Triple Point Technology v PTT (2021) UKSC 29 the Supreme Court considers general issues about a provision for liquidated damages under a contract and the function of liquidated damages. Parties agree a liquidated damages clause so as to provide a remedy that is predictable and certain for a particular event. There then does not have to be a potentially difficult and time consuming quantification of loss.

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The appeal in School Facility Management Ltd v GB of Christ the King College (2021) EWCA Civ 1053 addressed the question whether, in a claim for restitution of benefits conferred under a contract which was void as ultra vires one of the parties, the provider of the benefits must give credit for all benefits it received, notwithstanding that it has a change of position defence to any restitutionary claim for those benefits it received. The answer is : No.

In SoS for Health v Servier (2021) UKSC 24 a seven Justices Supreme Court holds that it is a requirement of the unlawful means economic tort that the unlawful means must have affected the third party’s freedom to deal with the claimant, the dealing requirement.

Valbonne Estates v Cityvalue Estates (2021) EWCA Civ 973 concerns the proper exercise of the Court’s discretion to continue an interim injunction or to re-grant it notwithstanding serious non-disclosure by the applicant when seeking the interim injunction on a without notice basis. At para 47 and following the Court of Appeal sets out the relevant principles. There are no hard and fast rules which must be applied. The Court should take into account all relevant circumstances.

Where there are breaches of the duty of full and fair disclosure on a without notice application, the general rule is that the order should be discharged and the Court should refuse to re-grant it. That is the starting point, especially if the non-disclosure/inaccurate representations are neither inadvertent nor accidental.

Manchester Building Society v Grant Thornton (2021) UKSC 20 is concerned with the scope of the duty of care in negligence in relation to the recovery of damages for the economic loss, and the liability of professional advisers. One looks to see what risk the duty was supposed to guard against and then look to see whether the loss suffered represented the fruition of that risk. The focus should be on identifying the purpose to be served by the duty of care assumed by the advisers.

The issue in Matthew v Selman (2021) UKSC 19 was whether, where a cause of action accrues at, or on the expiry of the midnight hour at the end of a day, the following day counts towards the calculation of the limitation period. The Supreme Court holds that, in a midnight deadline case, such as an action brought in tort, contract or breach of trust, subject to respectively Sections 2, 5 and 21 of the Limitation Act 1980, there is a complete undivided day following the expiry of the deadline, which should be included when calculating the limitation period. This is different from the situation where a cause of action accrues part-way through a day, and the general rule excludes that day for limitation purposes.

A rule, administrative system or policy is unlawful if it gives rise to an “unacceptable risk of unfairness”. The threshold however is a high one. It requires showing unfairness which is “inherent in the system itself”, not just the possibility of aberrant decisions and unfairness in individual circumstances.

In MR v SoS (2021) EWCA Civ 541 it is held that, where there is systemic unfairness, it is not an answer to say that Judicial Review is available to correct unfairness in any single case. Nonetheless the important distinction must be maintained between adjudicating in cases, which is for the Courts, and determining policy, which is not.

In Anchor Hanover Group v Oxfordshire County Council and Others (2021) EWHC 543 (TCC) O’Farrell J at para 59 stated principles as follows: (1) Local and other public authorities do not owe any duty of care at common law simply by exercising their statutory duties and powers; (2) The absence of a duty of care extends to advice given as part of the exercise of such duties; (3) However, a common law duty to protect from harm may arise, where the principles applicable to a private party would impose that duty; and (4) Such cases include where there is an assumption of responsibility.

In DVP v SSHD (2021) EWHC 606 (Admin) the Divisional Court emphasised the importance of the duty of candour when making applications for judicial review. Dame Victoria Sharp P said at para 9: “The duty of candour in this context means that the claimant must disclose any relevant information or material fact which either supports or undermines his case. Material facts are those facts which it is material for a judge to know when dealing with the urgent application. The duty requires the claimant to make the court aware of the issues that are likely to arise and the possible difficulties in the application or underlying claim.” She added, at para 10, that if there is a breach of the duty an order will be set aside even if it might otherwise have been justified. See also paras 73-80.