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Articles by LawTeacher
R (on the application of Z and another) v Hackney London Borough Council and another [2020] UKSC 40
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A charity letting social housing in Hackney only to members of the Orthodox Jewish community did not act unlawfully under the Equality Act 2010. The Supreme Court held that its policy was a proportionate way of meeting that community’s particular needs and disadvantages, and that a separate charity exemption did not require the charity to […]…
R (on the application of Highbury Poultry Farm Produce Ltd) v Crown Prosecution Service [2020] UKSC 39
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that two offences charged against a poultry slaughterhouse operator, arising from chickens entering the scalding tank while still alive, are offences of strict liability under domestic regulations implementing EU animal-welfare rules. The prosecution need not prove knowledge of the circumstances or any negligence or other culpability by the business operator. The […]…
Sutherland v Her Majesty’s Advocate (Scotland) [2020] UKSC 32
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that a prosecutor could use evidence of sexual communications gathered by a private paedophile-hunter group without interfering with the accused’s article 8 rights. The appellant had sent explicit messages and an image to an adult decoy whom he believed to be a 13-year-old child. Those communications were not capable of respect […]…
Sevilleja v Marex Financial Ltd [2020] UKSC 31
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Marex, a judgment creditor of two companies controlled by Mr Sevilleja, alleged that he had moved their assets beyond reach so that its judgment could not be paid, and sued him personally in tort. The Supreme Court held that this claim was not barred by the rule against reflective loss. That rule prevents a shareholder […]…
Villiers v Villiers [2020] UKSC 30
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Under the maintenance jurisdiction rules applied in this 2020 case, could a wife seek maintenance in England while her husband’s divorce proceedings were pending in Scotland? The majority held that the English court could hear her application. The Scottish action sought divorce and did not include a claim for maintenance. Facts and earlier decisions The […]…
R v Hilton (Northern Ireland) [2020] UKSC 29
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
After Bernadette Hilton was convicted of social security offences, a confiscation order was made for £10,263.50, the accepted value of her interest in a house owned jointly with a former partner. The Supreme Court held that the order remained valid even though neither the former partner nor the mortgagee had been given an opportunity to […]…
The Advocate General representing the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs v K E Entertainments Ltd [2020] UKSC 28
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court dismissed a bingo operator’s appeal seeking repayment of VAT accounted for between 1996 and 2004. The operator had used a game-by-game calculation in line with earlier HMRC guidance, but the only correct method was session-by-session, so the excess was tax that was not due. Recovery was barred by the three-year limit in […]…
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc v Kymab Ltd [2020] UKSC 27
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that Regeneron could not patent a whole range of genetically engineered mice when its patents taught a skilled person how to make only some of them. The mice were intended as platforms for developing antibodies for human treatment. For a product claim, the disclosure must enable substantially all the products within […]…
ABC v Principal Reporter and another (Scotland) [2020] UKSC 26
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The UK Supreme Court held that a brother or sister does not have to be given the same formal status as a parent in a Scottish children's hearing in order for article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to be respected. What is required is a sufficient opportunity, in the circumstances, to take […]…
Bresco Electrical Services Ltd v Michael J Lonsdale (Electrical) Ltd [2020] UKSC 25
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A company in liquidation may refer a dispute arising under a construction contract to adjudication even though the other party has cross-claims that engage insolvency set-off. The Supreme Court held that set-off does not remove the adjudicator’s jurisdiction and that the reference is not futile merely because summary enforcement may later be refused. Bresco’s appeal […]…
Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd v Visa Europe Services LLC and others [2020] UKSC 24
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
When customers paid by card, Visa and Mastercard’s default interchange fees put a floor under part of the charge that retailers paid their banks. The retailers said that competing banks would otherwise have had to negotiate that part of the price. The Supreme Court addressed the restriction, the evidence needed for an exemption, and how […]…
Elgizouli v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 10
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that the Home Secretary acted unlawfully by agreeing to share investigative material with the United States for the prosecution of Shafee El Sheikh without considering the Data Protection Act 2018. Much of the material was personal data, and the Act required a specific decision that the conditions for transferring it were […]…
Aspen Underwriting Ltd and others v Credit Europe Bank NV [2020] UKSC 11
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that the High Court of England and Wales had no jurisdiction over the insurers’ claims against a Dutch bank to recover sums paid under a settlement of a marine hull policy. The bank, as loss payee and beneficiary, was entitled under article 14 of the Brussels Regulation Recast to be sued […]…
MS (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 9
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that an immigration tribunal hearing a human rights appeal against removal must decide for itself whether the person is a victim of trafficking and is not bound by an earlier National Referral Mechanism decision. It restored the Upper Tribunal’s conclusion that removing MS to Pakistan would breach article 4 of the […]…
R v Copeland (AP) (Appellant) [2020] UKSC 8
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A man who made a small quantity of homemade explosive said that he did so only to experiment and to teach himself how explosives worked. The trial judge and the Court of Appeal ruled that this could not be a “lawful object” under section 4(1) of the Explosive Substances Act 1883, so a jury could […]…
Serafin v Malkiewicz and others [2020] UKSC 23
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that a High Court judge’s hostile and intimidatory interventions towards an unrepresented claimant had made a libel trial unfair, so that no findings from it could stand. The Court of Appeal had rightly identified the unfairness but had wrongly treated liability as concluded and limited the case to an assessment of […]…
Fowler v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2020] UKSC 22
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A South African resident diver who worked on the UK Continental Shelf argued that a UK rule treating certain employed divers as if they were carrying on a trade also changed how the UK–South Africa double tax treaty applied to his pay. The Supreme Court disagreed. On the assumption that he was an employee, the […]…
Cardtronics UK Ltd and others v Sykes and others [2020] UKSC 21
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The sites of cash machines in shops raised two distinct business-rates questions. Was a particular site a separate unit of property, and if so, who occupied it? Even where an ATM site could be separately identified, the shops in these appeals retained paramount occupation. The banks did not receive separate assessments. The questions before the […]…
Dill v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and another [2020] UKSC 20
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that inclusion in the statutory list does not by itself decide whether an object is a “building” under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. An inspector hearing an appeal against refusal of listed building consent or a listed building enforcement notice may consider that question, using the planning […]…
R v Adams (Northern Ireland) [2020] UKSC 19
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that an interim custody order made for the appellant in 1973 was invalid because the Secretary of State had not personally decided that he was suspected of involvement in terrorism. A Minister of State could sign such an order, but could not make it. The appellant had therefore not been in […]…
Duval v 11-13 Randolph Crescent Ltd [2020] UKSC 18
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A landlord promised each flat owner that, if asked and put in funds, it would enforce the covenants in the other flats' leases. The Supreme Court held that the landlord of 11-13 Randolph Crescent could not keep that promise and at the same time license one owner to remove part of a load-bearing wall in […]…
R (on the application of DN (Rwanda)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 7
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that DN, a recognised refugee, had been unlawfully detained for deportation. The detention depended on a decision to deport him for a conviction which a 2004 Order treated as a particularly serious crime, and that Order was ultra vires. He may pursue damages for false imprisonment, but the Court did not […]…
Zipvit Ltd v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (reference to the Court of Justice) [2020] UKSC 15
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Royal Mail and Zipvit had priced postal services on the mistaken assumption that they were VAT-exempt. Could Zipvit nevertheless deduct VAT as input tax when it had received no invoice charging it? In this 2020 judgment the Supreme Court explained why it needed the Court of Justice to interpret the VAT Directive before it could […]…
WM Morrison Supermarkets plc v Various Claimants [2020] UKSC 12
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that Morrisons was not vicariously liable for a senior auditor who copied staff payroll data and published it online in order to harm the company. The courts below had treated a close link in time and causation, and the supposed irrelevance of motive, as enough to make the employer liable. Lord […]…
Micula and others v Romania [2020] UKSC 5
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
In February 2020 the Supreme Court had to decide whether enforcement of an ICSID award against Romania should wait for EU state-aid proceedings. Registration had already taken place in England. The dispute was whether the English court could continue to suspend enforcement and require Romania to give security in the meantime. The investment, the treaty […]…
In the matter of an application by Deborah McGuinness for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2020] UKSC 6
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Michael Stone’s prison authorities treated the years he had spent on licence as counting towards the 30-year tariff of his life sentence. Deborah McGuinness, the sister of one of his victims, successfully challenged that calculation in the High Court, but the Supreme Court did not decide whether she was right. It held that the judicial […]…
AM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 17
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights may prevent the deportation of a seriously ill person who is not already close to death, where removal would create a real risk of a serious, rapid and irreversible decline in health resulting in intense suffering or a substantial reduction in […]…
Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX [2020] UKSC 14
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
After the hospital’s admitted negligence left XX unable to carry a pregnancy, she sought the cost of surrogacy as damages. The Supreme Court considered whether using donor eggs could restore part of what she had lost, and whether English public policy barred an award for commercial arrangements lawful abroad. The hospital admitted errors in reporting […]…
A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland of devolution issues to the Supreme Court pursuant to Paragraph 34 of Schedule 10 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Northern Ireland) [2020] UKSC 2
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Department for Communities published postcode lists used to introduce universal credit in Northern Ireland. Could those lists provide the basis for referring a human rights challenge to the Supreme Court? The justices declined to accept the Attorney General’s reference. The constitutional question was whether the Department’s part in implementing the policy brought it within […]…
R (on the application of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd and another) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2020] UKSC 16
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held, by a majority, that the Secretary of State acted unlawfully when he told administrators of the local government pension scheme not to pursue investment policies contrary to UK foreign or defence policy. He could guide how they take non-financial considerations into account. He could not use that power to stop investment […]…
R (on the application of Jalloh (formerly Jollah)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 4
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
An eight-hour nightly curfew, enforced by an electronic tag and the threat of prosecution or further immigration detention, was imprisonment at common law. The Supreme Court dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal and refused to narrow that long-standing concept so that it matched deprivation of liberty under article 5 of the European Convention on Human […]…
R (on the application of Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster) and others) v North Yorkshire County Council [2020] UKSC 3
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
When North Yorkshire County Council granted permission for a six-hectare extension of a limestone quarry in the Green Belt, objectors said the planning officer had wrongly left visual impact out of the question whether the development would preserve the Green Belt’s openness. The Supreme Court held that openness in the National Planning Policy Framework is […]…
FMX Food Merchants Import Export Co Ltd v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2020] UKSC 1
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Could HMRC collect customs duty on Chinese garlic more than three years after importation? The papers wrongly stated that the garlic came from Cambodia. FMX itself was not implicated in the fraud. Under the Customs Code then in force, the decisive question was whether the debt resulted from an act capable of giving rise to […]…
Attorney General v Crosland (appeal against contempt finding and orders) [2021] UKSC 58
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Can a litigant appeal from one Supreme Court panel to another? The question arose because the Court had itself tried Timothy Crosland for contempt after he disclosed an embargoed judgment. Four justices held that an appeal lay to a fresh panel. Every justice concluded that the challenge failed. Mr Crosland, an unregistered barrister, was a […]…
R (on the application of Elan-Cane) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 56
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Christie Elan-Cane challenged the Home Office’s refusal to issue a passport with an “X” marker. The Supreme Court accepted that non-gendered identity fell within private life under article 8. The question was whether, in 2021, that right required the UK to provide a passport reflecting that identity. Elan-Cane identifies as non-gendered and had repeatedly asked […]…
“Maduro Board” of the Central Bank of Venezuela v “Guaidó Board” of the Central Bank of Venezuela [2021] UKSC 57
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Two rival boards claimed authority over Venezuelan central bank assets in England. The first question was whom the UK Government recognised as Venezuela’s interim President at the relevant time. Its express recognition of Juan Guaidó bound the English courts. A separate question remained about the effect of Venezuelan court judgments invalidating appointments made by him. […]…
In the matter of applications by Margaret McQuillan, Francis McGuigan and Mary McKenna for judicial review (Northern Ireland) [2021] UKSC 55
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The cases concerned two different questions about police investigations into events during the Troubles. Did the Human Rights Act require a further investigation decades later? And was the police decision on a particular allegation lawful? The Supreme Court rejected the claims of a Convention duty but upheld the quashing of one decision on ordinary judicial […]…
Fratila and another v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2021] UKSC 53
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
During the period governed by EU free movement law, did pre-settled status alone entitle an EU citizen to claim universal credit on the same terms as a UK national? Applying the Court of Justice’s ruling in CG, the Supreme Court held that it did not. The claimants had domestic permission to stay but did not […]…
A Local Authority v JB [2021] UKSC 52
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
In deciding whether someone has capacity to engage in sexual relations, what must that person be able to understand about a partner’s consent? The Supreme Court held that the partner must be able to consent and must actually consent before and throughout the activity. The assessment therefore had to address both people’s participation. The issue […]…
Alize 1954 and another v Allianz Elementar Versicherungs AG and others [2021] UKSC 51
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court dismissed shipowners' appeal and held that their container vessel was unseaworthy under article III rule 1 of the Hague Rules because a defective passage plan caused her to ground on leaving Xiamen. The owners could not rely on the nautical fault exception in article IV rule 2(a), and their crew's failure to […]…
Kabab-Ji SAL (Lebanon) v Kout Food Group (Kuwait) [2021] UKSC 48
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court dismissed Kabab-Ji’s appeal and refused enforcement in England of a Paris ICC award against Kout Food Group. English law, chosen to govern the franchise agreements, also governed whether KFG had become a party to the arbitration clause. Clauses requiring signed writing meant there was no real prospect that KFG had joined by […]…
Lloyd v Google LLC [2021] UKSC 50
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Mr Richard Lloyd tried to sue Google on behalf of an estimated class of more than four million iPhone users, alleging that Google had secretly tracked their browsing in 2011 and 2012 and that each person should receive the same sum for loss of control of personal data. The Supreme Court held that the Data […]…
Crown Prosecution Service v Aquila Advisory Ltd [2021] UKSC 49
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Directors of Vantis Tax Ltd obtained a secret profit of £4.55 million by misusing the company’s intellectual property in fraudulent tax schemes, in breach of fiduciary duty, and were convicted of cheating the public revenue. The Supreme Court held that the profit was held on constructive trust for the company, whose rights had passed to […]…
Kostal UK Ltd v Dunkley and others [2021] UKSC 47
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
The Supreme Court held that Kostal UK Ltd could not lawfully offer new pay terms directly to Unite members while the collective bargaining procedure agreed with the union was still continuing. Those offers had the “prohibited result” in section 145B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The workers’ appeal was allowed, […]…
R (on the application of Majera (formerly SM (Rwanda))) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 46
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A First-tier Tribunal judge granted immigration bail and did not ban unpaid work. The Home Secretary nevertheless prohibited both paid and unpaid employment. The Supreme Court held that she could not lawfully disregard the tribunal’s order, even if it was defective, without first having it varied or set aside. Mr Majera was detained under immigration […]…
FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC v Lady Brownlie [2021] UKSC 45
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Lady Brownlie was seriously injured, and her husband killed, in a road accident in Egypt on a hotel excursion she had booked from England. By a majority, the Supreme Court held that her tort claims against the Egyptian hotel operator passed the English tort gateway because significant damage was sustained in England, not only at […]…
R (on the application of Association of Independent Meat Suppliers and another) v Food Standards Agency [2021] UKSC 54
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
An official veterinarian refused to certify a slaughtered bull as fit for human consumption because pyaemia was suspected. Without that certification, called a health mark, it would have been a criminal offence for the slaughterhouse operator to try to sell the carcass. Applying answers from the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Supreme […]…
Anwar v The Advocate General for Scotland [2021] UKSC 44
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
Ms Anwar had already won her workplace harassment claim. Her difficulty was collecting the award. She argued that EU law required the Scottish employment tribunal itself to be able to preserve assets while a claim was pending, rather than requiring a separate application in another court. The claim This appeal arose from Ms Anwar’s petition […]…
Ho v Adelekun [2021] UKSC 43
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
This 2021 decision interpreted the version of CPR 44.14 then in force. A personal injury defendant owed costs to the claimant but had a larger costs order in her own favour. Could she cancel one against the other when payment of the settlement had produced no court order for damages? Qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS) […]…
X v Kuoni Travel Ltd [2021] UKSC 34
Article. Published: November 3, 2026
A package-tour organiser had promised more than flights and a hotel room. The issue was whether its promise also covered ordinary assistance by hotel staff, and whether it could rely on an unforeseeable-event defence when a guest was assaulted during that assistance. The contract and the assault X bought a package holiday from Kuoni which […]…
