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Modern litigation spans the globe and issues concerning cross-border service of documents and jurisdiction often raise difficulties that make specialist legal advice essential. That was certainly so in a High Court privacy case with a strong international flavour. A doctor launched a claim for damages, alleging misuse of private information and harassment against a man who he feared was intent on publishing private details about him on a website. He obtained an emergency pre-trial injunction that forbade such publication. However, the man subsequently argued that he had not been properly...

You may be forgiven for thinking that the authorities always follow proper procedures, but that is not the case, and when they fail, their actions may not be legally valid. In a recent case, a series of errors put a taxpayer and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) at loggerheads in the Tax Tribunal, with the result that HMRC's penalty assessments were partly cancelled. In April 2016, the taxpayer had received a notice requiring her to file a tax return. She did so the following October, but it was inadvertently signed not...

It is commonplace for one spouse to control the family finances and, while relations are amicable, this usually causes few issues. However, if the relationship falls apart and separation or divorce is in train, this is often no longer the case. When a spouse attempts to put pressure on their estranged partner by denying them access to funding to cover their legal fees, this can certainly be a problem, but as a recent case shows, the courts take a dim view of those who seek to deny legal representation to...

When a man's first wife died, he inherited her share of the property they had owned jointly. At the time, he was living with his third wife, and the couple remained together for a further 28 years until his death in 1990. He died without making a will and without taking any steps to transfer the legal interest in the property into his and his wife's joint names. Circumstances like this are ripe for a dispute to arise, and in this case the family ended up fighting it out in court. The...