Steven Taylor and Robert Wood were members of a conspiracy to import counterfeit cigarettes without payment of excise duty.  Both used their legitimate logistics and freight forwarding businesses to give instructions to an unsuspecting road haulier to bring the cigarettes (concealed within pallet loads of tea towels and described as textiles in the documentation) from Belgium to the United Kingdom.  Revenue and Customs officers had got wind of the conspiracy and intercepted the load at the delivery point.  A number of the conspirators were convicted of fraudulent evasion of excise duty and subjected to confiscation orders under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Dismissing Taylor and Wood’s appeals, the Court of Appeal rejected their challenge to the excise duty regulations as being incompatible with the Act of Parliament under which they were made and with the relevant EU Directive and held that they had obtained a benefit from their criminal conduct by evading duty that they were liable to pay.  The Court also rejected their argument that the confiscation orders were disproportionate and contrary to the Human Rights Act on the grounds that other members of the conspiracy had been liable to pay the duty as well.

Nicholas Paines QC acted for the Crown Prosecution Service in the appeal.

Click here to read the full Taylor & Wood v Regina judgment

Mr Justice Cranston handed down judgment today dismissing the judicial review challenge brought by the UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations against the Secretary of State’s decision to reallocate a small amount of fishing quota from the over 10 metres fishing fleet to the under ten metres fleet (in-shore fishermen).  Kassie Smith QC and Elizabeth Kelsey appeared for Greenpeace and the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUTFA), an association of small boat in-shore fishermen, in the case supporting the Government’s decision.  The Judge held that there was no legitimate expectation as a matter of domestic or EU law that consistently underused quota would not be reallocated and he rejected the argument that the reallocation of quota involved the deprivation of or interference with a possession for the purposes of Article 1, Protocol 1 ECHR.  He also rejected arguments that the decision offended the EU law principle of non-discrimination.

The Judge granted permission to appeal on the basis that the case raised issues of general public importance.

It’s covered by Greenpeace at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/oceans/historic-legal-victory-fish-and-fishermen-20130710.

For further Press coverage please see below;

BBC

The Independent

The Guardian

The Times

The Telegraph

Television coverage;

BBC News

ITV News

The case has also received extensive attention in Fish Trade publications and The Local Press

click here to read the full DEFRA v UK fishing association judgment

The Court of Appeal has ruled today that criminal prosecutions against five former News of the World editors and journalists for alleged conspiracy to hack the mobile voicemail messages of celebrities and other persons in the news can continue under section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”).

The defendants had sought to dismiss the prosecution on the ground that the section 1 offence is not committed when a voicemail message is hacked after it has already been accessed by its intended recipient. They argued, inter alia, that voicemail messages that had already been accessed fall outside of the privacy protection for electronic communications conferred by Directive 2002/58/EC concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector and that the UK is not entitled to confer privacy protection going beyond what is envisaged in that harmonising measure.

The Crown maintained that (i) properly interpreted, Directive 2002/58/EC requires the UK to protect the privacy of mobile voicemail messages beyond the point of first access and throughout the time that they remain stored on a public telecommunications network, but that (ii) in any event, the Directive is only a minimum harmonisation measure, which allows EU Member States to confer greater privacy protection than provided for in the Directive.

The Court of Appeal accepted the Crown’s submission that Directive 2002/58/EC is a minimum harmonisation measure and, therefore, allowed the prosecutions to continue. As it was unnecessary to do so, the Court of Appeal declined to decide the question of whether the Directive itself requires Member States to protect the privacy of voicemail messages stored on the electronic communications network.

Click here to read the full News of the World – Edmondson Judgment

Daniel Beard QC and Ligia Osepciu acted for the Crown, assisting criminal law counsel, Andrew Edis QC and Rebecca Chalkley, with submissions to the Court of Appeal on the European law issues.

Monckton Chambers are delighted to announce that Tim Ward QC was awarded the ‘Barrister of the Year’ accolade at the annual Lawyer Awards. Tim was commended for acting on behalf of the Icelandic Government during the Icesave case.

Melanie Hall QC received third place in the ‘Barrister of the Year’ category, as a result of acting on behalf of HMRC and successfully saving the taxpayer £20billion in the past year.

Monckton Chambers also received third place in the ‘Chambers of the Year’ category.

The Lawyer Awards were held on 25^th June at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.

To read more about the Icesave case, please click here

For more information of The Lawyer Awards, please click here.

Monckton Chambers’ Daniel Beard QC and Rob Williams have successfully defended the Competition Commission against an application brought by AkzoNobel NV challenging the Competition Commission’s decision in the AkzoNobel/Metlac merger inquiry.  AkzoNobel NV was represented by Tim Ward QC and Alistair Lindsay, also of Monckton Chambers.

The case is the first concerning the scope of the Competition Commission’s powers to make enforcement orders which extend to a person’s conduct outside the United Kingdom.

In its judgment, the Competition Appeal Tribunal considers the circumstances in which a person can properly be said to be “carrying on business in the United Kingdom” for the purposes of s. 86(c) of the Enterprise Act 2002.

The Tribunal found that the Competition Commission had not made an error of law in finding that AkzoNobel NV, a Dutch holding company, was carrying on business in the United Kingdom and could therefore be the subject of an enforcement order.

Click here to read the full AkzoNobel v Competition Commission judgment

Mercedes have avoided stern sanctions for their involvement in last month’s tyre test in Barcelona after the FIA announced they were to receive a reprimand.

The decision comes after the FIA’s International Tribunal sat yesterday to determine whether Mercedes and Pirelli broke Formula 1’s rules prohibiting competitors entered in the Championship from running their current cars during in-season testing.

The FIA claimed that Mercedes and Pirelli were never granted official permission by the governing body to conduct a three-day, 1,000 km tyre test last month at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.

The tribunal found that Mercedes had broken article 22.4 of the sporting regulations by running an illegal in-season test with a current car, despite receiving “qualified approval” from the FIA to run the test.

The tribunal found that there was no intention by Mercedes to gain “any unfair sporting advantage” and they did not act in bad faith.

The Telegraph quoted: “Mercedes’ barrister, Paul Harris QC, even felt so bold as to close by suggesting a few “appropriate” sanctions for the tribunal’s five judges to chew over with dinner last night. Harris said that a “reprimand might be proportional” given the total lack of clarity from the FIA over whether or not they should be allowed to use a 2013 car at the test. Failing that, perhaps their running at the next Young Driver Test should be curtailed. Any penalty more severe than that, Harris said, should surely be suspended given the inconsistencies in the FIA’s case. To be honest, he had a point.”

Mercedes have also been banned from competing in the forthcoming young driver test session to be held at Silverstone on 17-19 July, the world governing body confirmed in a statement.

Paul Harris QC and Fiona Banks acted on behalf of Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix.

The case has been widely covered in the media, including:

BBC

The Guardian

The Independent

Paul Harris QC appears before the FIA’s International Tribunal today regarding an F1 tyre test in which Mercedes have been accused of breaking Formula 1’s rules prohibiting competitors entered in the Championship from running its current contender during in-season testing.

The FIA claims that Mercedes and Pirelli were never granted official permission by the governing body to conduct a three-day, 1,000 km tyre test last month at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Paul Harris QC, acting on behalf of Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix, has rejected the FIA’s claim.

To view live coverage of the hearing, please click here.

The case has received substantial press coverage, including:

• BBC
• The Telegraph
• Sky Sports
• Autosport
• Sporting Life

Eric Metcalfe took part in a panel discussion on the UK law relating to surveillance and intelligence gathering on ‘Unreliable Evidence’, broadcast on Radio 4.

To listen to the full programme on the BBC iPlayer, please click here.

This case was a challenge by Resource against the University of Ulster regarding the winner of a competitive tender process did not meet the minimum financial requirement and that its tendered price was abnormally low.

The claim involved the hearing of the application to continue suspension of the award of this major contract.  It now proceeds to a substantial claim for damages.

Michael Bowsher QC was instructed by Tughans for Resource NI Ltd.

To read the full Judgment of the High Court of Northern Ireland please click here.

John Swift QC has announced his intention to conclude his membership with Monckton Chambers, effective from the end of the legal year in July 2013.

John was called to the Bar in 1965 and took Silk in 1981. He became a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1992.

John joined Monckton Chambers in 1967. From 1993 – 1998, he was the first Rail Regulator (head of non-Ministerial Government department) appointed under the Railways Act 1993. He resumed full time practice as a member of Monckton Chambers in 1999, where he was Head of Chambers until July 2001. For the past 14 years he has been involved as advocate and adviser in many of the most important cases and inquiries in the field of competition law and economic regulation, both in the UK and the EU.

Since 2009 John Swift has also been a panel member of the Cooperation and Competition Panel, now integrated within Monitor, which was established by the Department of Health to administer the principles and rules for cooperation and competition for NHS funded services. John has thus been involved in two of the critical Government programmes for reconstruction of the public sector.

Paul Lasok QC, Head of Monckton Chambers said: “John has had a long and distinguished career as one of the UK’s top competition lawyers. His legacy at Monckton Chambers is a new generation of competition lawyers following in his path. We all wish him well.”