This paper explores understudied issues surrounding accessions to shareholder and partnership agreements: the process by which such accessions take effect; the survival of equities following an accession; and the enforcement of a condition for incoming shareholders to have to execute and deliver a deed of accession. Accessions happen extremely often in modern commercial life, which renders surprising the dearth of academic and judicial discussion, but more disconcerting is the unsettledness of some of the complex issues implicated. The repurposing of unilateral contracts to explain how deeds of accession operate is not fully tested in English law; the conception of partial novation as adumbrated in Unitech Global Ltd v Deutsche Bank AG, which is not even law – much less bad law – has already generated academic controversy; and the enforcement of a condition precedent, in the form of prior accession to a shareholder agreement, for registration of membership in a company interacts in an uncertain way with the Companies Act 2006, lending impetus to the adoption of new methods for attaining relief.

In recent years concern about Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) has intensified, prompting calls for societal action. Pregnant women's consumption of alcohol is increasingly surveilled, public health campaigns now promote abstinence, and in some jurisdictions, prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) resulting in FASD has received criminal sanction. This paper anticipates potential calls to criminalise PAE resulting in FASD by envisioning what such a case might look like. Applying Duff et al's framework for determining whether an act should be criminalised, we draw upon public health and jurisprudential discourses to trace the outline of an argument for framing maternal alcohol consumption causing injury to the child born alive as a public wrong and a crime.1 We show how an ‘in principle’ case may be constructed, but argue that countervailing principles, including women's rights, and practical considerations, tell decisively against criminalisation.

This paper explores the use of mindset material in terrorism cases. Mindset material is a broad category of evidence, including social media activity and internet search histories, relied on to infer or imply that the accused is affiliated or aligned with terrorists. Although mindset material plays a central role throughout the justice process in terrorism cases, no work to date has explored and discussed its use in depth. In this paper I draw on doctrinal and empirical findings, including interviews, to examine how and why it has come to play such a central role in terror cases. While mindset material is a well-intentioned tool used to selectively enforce broadly drafted and vaguely defined terrorism offences, it is also a blunt tool, and sees great emphasis placed on the accused's inferred status as terrorist (or not). In this paper I explore and problematise the use of mindset material and the inferences drawn from it, specifically in relation to to fantasists, the merely curious, and young autistic defendants. I posit that mindset material is symptomatic of a need to revisit the substantive law and to rethink the proper role of the criminal law in preventing terrorism.

Force majeure (FM) clauses are designed to free both parties to a contract from liability when an event beyond their control prevents one or both of them from performing the contract. Examples of such events include inclement weather, natural catastrophes, political upheaval, changes in applicable rules or regulations, or unavailability of essential supplies or services. It is common to include FM clauses in manufacturing, construction or transportation contracts, where there is a high risk of such events occurring due to the length of time required to perform the contract, or the complexity of the performance obligations. Often a lot of money is at stake and pre-allocating the risk of such events is crucial to avoid disputes further down the line. While disputes regarding the meaning and effect of FM clauses may not be unusual, such disputes rarely reach the Supreme Court. MUR Shipping was one such rare case.

The Irish Constitution contains a pre-enactment abstract review procedure under Article 26 whereby, before signing a Bill into law, the President can refer the Bill to the Supreme Court for a decision on its constitutionality. However, only 16 such references have ever been made. The reason Irish Presidents have been cautious about sending Bills to the Supreme Court for abstract review relates to the fact that if a Bill survives the Article 26 review process, it then acquires an immunity from further challenge under Article 34.3.3. This has sometimes been referred to as a ‘seal of constitutionality’ and the absolute nature of this blanket immunity has been criticised because it means that, in practice, the review process is rarely used. By its very nature, abstract review suffers from the defect that the provisions are being looked at in a vacuum, without the benefit of a concrete factual scenario and it may be that circumstances later arise which could result in an unconstitutionality that was not apparent when the Bill was initially examined. For this reason, Presidents will sometimes decide not to refer a Bill, even one which is considered controversial, for fear of closing off the Bill to potential future challenges; they may feel it is better for challenges to occur organically as situations arise rather than to prevent a situation where a future challenge is blocked by the immunity following the review process. As Hogan has put it, ‘[w]ithout a plaintiff, a court may fail to anticipate side-effects or unintended consequences of the law’. The paucity of occurrences means that when the procedure is invoked, there is a great interest (amongst members of the legal and academic communities at least) in the process and outcome.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the contours of evolving jurisprudence on offensive expression and negative messages, and to suggest that it can best be understood by reference to the concept of stigma. At the European Court of Human Rights, there appears to have been an increasing willingness to recognise the harm of offensive expression through an interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but the reach of this case law remains uncertain. In particular, while some cases associate negative expression with negative stereotyping, not all of these cases do, and there are potential conflicts with freedom of speech. In the domestic context, these issues recently arose in a significant case from the Court of Appeal, R (Crowter) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In this case, the appellants argued that a legal provision sends a negative ‘message’, through the negative stereotyping of disabled people, but this ‘message’ is implicit, rather than explicitly articulated. While these developments raise important questions about the future evolution of case law, we propose that a focus on stigma can more clearly highlight the harms involved.

This paper examines the question of reparation for non-recent institutional child sexual abuse in England and Wales and Australia in the light of independent inquiries which reported in 2022 (England and Wales) and 2017 (Australia). Both inquiries recommended the introduction of state-based redress schemes that would exist alongside private law. While the new UK government considers how to proceed, Australia has established a national redress scheme, there have been changes to private law and new legislation reforming tort law and removing procedural obstacles such as limitation. In evaluating the Australian reforms and the case for change in English law, this paper examines the different roles state-based redress and private law compensation play in responding to the harm suffered by victims and survivors of sexual abuse. It argues that there are urgent lessons that the UK government should learn from the Australian experience in establishing a redress scheme and that while legislative change to substantive private law has proven less than successfull in Australia, legislation on limitation periods and suing unincorporated associations has assisted plaintiffs. Finally there are lessons that private law can learn from state-based redress schemes in seeking to provide remedies that meet the distinctive needs of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

The closed material procedure (CMP) – ever since its introduction to English law – has been subjected to a very significant amount of academic criticism. But over time, the CMP has become increasingly settled as a fixture in English law. Whilst the existence of the CMP per se in English law seems settled, the extent of its deployment is not. Given this development, it seems important and constructive to examine whether – and the conditions under which – a CMP can ever be normatively justified, all things considered. Two propositions will be made. First, a common argument for the CMP – the maximising argument – does not demonstrate that the CMP is normatively justified, all things considered, for it does not sufficiently mitigate the two main objections to the CMP, based respectively on the principles of natural justice and open justice. Secondly, where the clear advantage variation is deployed – ie when a CMP allows the excluded party to make use of material that: (a) clearly advantages him; and (b) would otherwise be unavailable for the court's consideration – both objections are sufficiently mitigated. In such a case, the CMP is normatively justified, all things considered. This constitutes a limited normative case for the CMP.

Since its inception in England and Wales, the partial defence to murder of loss of control has generated a steady stream of appeals. Individually, those appeals have illuminated key aspects of the plea's operation. This paper, though, is the first to explore that operation via a systematic analysis of every loss of control appeal to date (110 cases). Using that data, the paper frames more effectively, and thus improves understanding of, a neglected phenomenon in the plea: specifically, the decision-making roles of criminal justice ‘gatekeepers’ – principally trial judges, juries and prosecutors – in governing access to loss of control. In doing so, the paper assesses how far these gatekeepers interpret the plea's requirements in a ‘civilising’ way – one which prioritises meritorious loss of control claims above those which are unmeritorious. It contends that each gatekeeper struggles to regulate loss of control in such a way. Ultimately, this diminishes the symbolic value these reforms may have had and frustrates any civilising potential of homicide law reform.

This paper calls for the lawyering profession – which is often viewed as unabridged – to be reframed into two distinct occupations: legal aid practice and private practice, to better incorporate the divisions in labour. In order to better understand contemporary legal aid work and its workers, the hidden realities must be unveiled from behind their private counterparts, which opposingly signify wealth, professionalism, autonomy and privilege. Set within a context of crumbling professional identities, a shrinking industry and financial constraints, the paper draws on ethnographic and interview data. It finds that those working in legal aid undoubtedly face a more stagnated, under-resourced and precarious working environment, which means that their professional experience is vastly different from their private counterparts. Likewise, those in the field face toxic narratives from the government, the media, the public, and their private counterparts alike, resulting in persistent discourse of vilification. Ultimately, it calls for a refocus of legal aid work as a separate vocation due to its altruistic underpinnings, unique ‘professional’ identity, and values.

This paper considers the relationship between litigants in person (LiPs) and conspiracy theories and seeks to answer two questions: how, and why, do some LiPs come to be conspiracy theorists? The majority of LiPs, of course, do not become conspiracy-minded. There is also no evidence that LiPs are more likely than anyone else in legal proceedings to be conspiracists, only, perhaps, that it is more obvious when they are. But there continue to be individuals who have conspiracist explanations for difficulties or failures they experience throughout legal proceedings. And while it is widely held that some LiPs hold eccentric beliefs about the law, there has been little attempt to understand how and why LiPs may come to acquire or articulate these beliefs. This is presumably because it has not been considered important to interrogate the views of people already often assumed to be ‘difficult’ or eccentric. This paper contends, however, that trying to understand how and why these conspiracist beliefs are acquired matters very much. This is because conspiracy theories can give us a critical insight into how negative experiences of litigation can result in a loss of faith or trust in legal institutions.

A defendant (D) will commit the tort of false imprisonment where, without lawful justification (consent, valid warrant, etc), they intentionally confine a plaintiff (P) to a restricted space. In Blackstone's terms, ‘to constitute the tort of false imprisonment there are two points requisite: 1. The detention of the person; and, 2. The unlawfulness of such detention’. In GE v Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, Ireland's Supreme Court answered a question about the damages recoverable where Blackstone's two conditions have been met: can P recover substantial (rather than nominal) damages for false imprisonment against D where, had P not been unlawfully detained by D, P could and would have been lawfully detained by D for the same period, under identical conditions?

This paper considers the legality of the UK practice of prosecuting trans people for sexual offences on the basis of deception as to gender history, a practice unknown in other member states. It argues that such prosecutions may constitute an unjustified violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, it argues that where criminal prosecution falls within the scope of Article 8 but is viewed as objectively justified under Article 8(2), it may constitute a violation of Article 14. The paper will proceed as follows. Part 2 will provide some background context regarding prosecution of trans people for deception as to gender history in the UK. Part 3 will set out the current law pertaining to sexual fraud in England and Wales. Part 4 will present two arguments as to why prosecutions based on current English law, or Crown Prosecution Service interpretations of it, may violate Article 8: (1) a right to respect for privacy is undermined by lack of legal certainty regarding the threshold of criminal liability; and (2) deception as to gender history ought not to be considered a material deception serving to vitiate consent as a matter of law. Part 5 will consider the issue of potential discrimination under Article 14.

Drawing on a dataset of 263 contempt of court decisions, this paper examines a widespread but under-interrogated phenomenon: imprisonment for breach of injunctions. Across a wide range of contexts – from cases involving anti-social behaviour, protest, Gypsy and Traveller communities – courts across the country are using their civil contempt of court powers to imprison individuals for breaching injunctions. As the first research to date that explicitly examines this issue, the paper falls into four parts. First, it introduces the powers to make an injunction; in section 2 the courts’ powers on committal are outlined. Section 3 introduces the dataset on which this paper is based. Finally, section 4 explores the geographical distribution of cases, sentencing decisions, and the representation of defendants in these proceedings. We identify significant disparities in the application and enforcement of injunctions, raising critical questions about legal practices, fairness and equality. We advocate for ongoing academic research in this area.

The sovereign power to control the entry and residence of persons in the state, and the corollary power to deport, has long been considered to be a defining feature of statehood. State discretion as to who may remain within the national border is, however, tempered by international and regional human rights obligations, as well as domestic constitutional principles. In this context, it is well established that a deportation will violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if it constitutes a disproportionate interference with family and/or private life in the host country.

Litigation funding has become an essential ingredient in collective actions for breaches of competition law brought in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). In the recent PACCAR proceedings, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on the nature and enforceability of litigation funding agreements (LFAs) between third-party litigation funders and group representatives where the success fee is determined as a percentage of the damages award.1 The Court held with a 4:1 majority (Lady Rose dissenting)2 that the LFAs in question are damages-based fee agreements (DBAs) and, as such, unenforceable. This judgment has wide-ranging consequences, as the CAT is unlikely to allow collective actions to proceed if the funding agreements cannot be relied on. The decision has caused uncertainty and upheaval in the funding market as a considerable number of funding agreements in collective proceedings contain DBAs. It also triggered legal challenges in collective proceedings where funders are seeking to amend the funding agreements to deal with the Supreme Court ruling.3 The fall-out from the decision suggests that funding rules for collective actions may need more legislative attention – litigation funding was given some thought during the drafting of the opt-out action regime, but the legal framework for litigation funding remains fragmented and open to interpretation.4

The past decade has seen a marked shift in the regulatory landscape of UK higher education. Institutions are increasingly assuming responsibility for preventing campus sexual misconduct, and are responding to its occurrence through – amongst other things – codes of (mis)conduct, consent and/or active bystander training, and improved safety and security measures. They are also required to support victim-survivors in continuing with their education, and to implement fair and robust procedures through which complaints of sexual misconduct are investigated, with sanctions available that respond proportionately to the seriousness of the behaviour and its harms. This paper examines the challenges and prospects for the success of university disciplinary processes for sexual misconduct. It focuses in particular on how to balance the potentially conflicting rights to privacy held by reporting and responding parties within proceedings, while respecting parties’ rights to equality of access to education, protection from degrading treatment, due process, and the interests of the wider campus community. More specifically, we explore three key moments where private data is engaged: (1) in the fact and details of the complaint itself; (2) in information about the parties or circumstances of the complaint that arise during the process of an investigation and/or resultant university disciplinary process; and (3) in the retention and disclosure (to reporting parties or the university community) of information regarding the outcomes of, and sanctions applied as part of, a disciplinary process. We consider whether current data protection processes – and their interpretation – are compatible with trauma-informed practice and a wider commitment to safety, equality and dignity, and reflect on the ramifications for all parties where that balance between rights or interests is not struck.

When a company becomes insolvent, particularly if it is a large company, this will often mean that there will be a large-scale redundancy process. The requirements of the process can be technical, but there is a list of obligations that must be adhered and these are set out within the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA 1992).