Emailgen Systems Corporation v Exclaimer Ltd and another

Injunction Undertaking. The Commercial Court dismissed the defendants' application for a release from an undertaking given as part of a consent order as it had not been open to the defendants to seek to be released from their undertaking on the grounds that the freezing order ought never to have been granted and they had failed to establish good cause for being released from the undertaking.

*International Energy Group Ltd v Zurich Insurance Plc UK

Insurance Indemnity insurance. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that a judge had been wrong to find that the defendant insurer's liability to the claimant insured under an employer's liability policy had restricted the indemnity that the claimant could claim under the policy for damages paid to an employee who had contracted mesothelioma by proportioning the period of the employee's period of work with the claimant to the period under which the claimant had been insured with the defendant. If an employer was liable to his employee for his employee's mesothelioma following a tortious exposure to asbestos created during an insurance period, then, for the purposes of the insuring clause in the employer's liability policy, the disease was 'caused' within the insurance period.

Templeton Insurance Ltd v Thomas and another

Contempt of court Committal. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that, whilst a judge had been entitled to impose sentences of imprisonment on the two defendants for breaches of a freezing injunction whereby they had wilfully and knowingly transferred the assets of a business into a phoenix company in breach of the injunction, despite the absence of remorse, there had been considerable personal mitigation which had justified the suspension of their sentences. An attack on the administration of justice which was made when a freezing injunction was breached usually merited an immediate sentence of imprisonment of some not insubstantial amount.

*Dickinson v Tesco plc; and other appeals

Damages Measure of damages. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, permitted the admission of fresh evidence in an appeal concerning the recoverability of car hire charges recoverable after the innocent victim in a road traffic accident had hired a car on credit terms while their own car was unavailable. Based on the new evidence, the decisions of the judges below were set aside to the extent that they related to issues of quantum as the evidence upon which the judges had based their decisions had been unsafe and unsatisfactory.

The Co-operative Bank Plc v Mierau

Practice Pre-trial or post-judgment relief. The Queen's Bench Division held that there was an overwhelming case for the continuation of a freezing injunction against the defendant employee in circumstances where there were strong grounds for supposing that she was involved in criminal fraud by milking numerous sums of money from the claimant bank's clients by stealth and deception.

*Akciné Bendrové Bankas Snoras (in bankruptcy) v Antonov and another

Practice Post-trial or pre-judgment relief. The Commercial Court considered a number of applications made by the claimant, who was alleged to have misappropriated and misused money from a bank in liquidation. The court held that none of the claimant's applications would be granted, and that a world-wide freezing order against him would continue.

Nationwide Building Society v Christie and another

Practice Summary judgment. The Chancery Division granted the claimant building society's application for summary judgment on its claim against the second defendant for payment under a guarantee in respect of monies lent under a mortgage to the first defendant. The court further granted summary judgment in favour of the building society on the second defendant's counterclaim, the court having found that there was no real prospect of the second defendant succeeding in defending the claim or on the counterclaim.

Chung v Funafloat Ltd and others

Costs Order for costs. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed the first defendant company's appeal against a cost's order requiring it to pay the second defendant's costs, in circumstances where the claimant's claim had been dismissed.

Aldersgate Estates Ltd v Ham Construction Ltd (in liquidation) and another

Practice Technology and Construction Court. The Technology and Construction Court, in dismissing an application by the second defendant for a preliminary issue to be heard concerning quantum, reiterated that the variety of preliminary issues was infinite and the timing of any application to the court for an order that preliminary issues be determined could vary from the institution of proceedings to the commencement of a trial. Therefore, the ten factors to consider set out by Neuberger J in Steele v Steele [2001] CP Rep 106 were not necessarily exclusive and there might be factors, not mentioned in that case, which were specific to any given case and which could properly be taken into account.

*Sivanandan and others v Hackney London Borough

Race relations Discrimination. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, held that the Employment Appeal Tribunal had been correct to find that there had been no error of law in the employment tribunal's remedies decision awarding compensation against the defendant authority, a potential employer, in excess of the amount of compensation that it had awarded to the claimant as against an employee who had been the main discriminator against the claimant.