8 September 2026

ABC v Huntercombe: an employer's vicarious liability to outsiders does not pass under TUPE

A hospital operator went into liquidation with a large insurance deductible and more than fifty similar claims waiting. A claimant tried to reach the company that had taken over the staff under a TUPE transfer, arguing that the old employer's vicarious liability for its employees' acts had transferred with their contracts. The Court of Appeal has held that it did not. The claims stay with the insolvent transferor.

7 September 2026

Batavia Eximp v Pedregal Maritime: a claim for security does not stop a time bar, and a bill of lading must say which cargo is on deck

Cargo holders arrested a sister ship in Singapore inside the year, then started the London arbitration the contract required after the year had run. The Court of Appeal has held that the arrest proceedings were not suit under the Hague-Visby Rules, so the claim was extinguished. It has also held that a bill which gives only a count of pieces on deck does not take that cargo out of the Rules. The whole claim is time-barred.

6 September 2026

Lonestar Properties v Lecacheur: a manager can be appointed over two buildings, but not because they adjoin

The leaseholders of one flat in one half of a St John's Wood pair asked for a manager to be appointed. The First-tier Tribunal appointed one over both halves, including the home of the leaseholders who control the landlord company. The Upper Tribunal has held that the power to do that exists, and that on this evidence it was wrong to use it. The order is to be cut back to one building.

5 September 2026

Augustine v Data Cars: a flat charge levied on everyone can still be part-time discrimination

Every driver paid the same fixed weekly fee for access to the booking system, whatever hours he worked, so the driver on short hours paid more for each hour he drove. Three tribunals and courts held he could not win because his part-time status was not the sole ground for that treatment. On 12 August 2026 the Supreme Court allowed his appeal. An effective cause is enough.

4 September 2026

Drelle v Servis-Terminal: a foreign judgment nobody has recognised here is still a debt

A Russian company holding a judgment for RUB 2 billion served a statutory demand on its former director in London and had him made bankrupt. The Court of Appeal set that aside, holding that a judgment from abroad does nothing in England until an English court has recognised it. On 27 July 2026 the Supreme Court allowed the appeal. The obligation to pay under such a judgment is a debt, and a petition can be presented on it.

3 September 2026

Ebert v Ferrari: pre-action disclosure stops at the border

A man convicted in Hong Kong after a fatal crash wanted Ferrari's internal documents before suing it in England. The Technology and Construction Court held on 3 September 2026 that section 33 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 gives it no power to order pre-action disclosure against a foreign respondent of documents held abroad, and that even with the power it would have refused. The route to those documents is a letter of request to the Italian court.

2 September 2026

A1 v P: winning a jurisdiction challenge is no protection against paying indemnity costs

Three companies attacked an arbitration award for want of jurisdiction. Two of them got the award against them set aside. On 31 July 2026 the Commercial Court still ordered two of the three to pay the other side's costs of the argument that had produced a very large part of the costs of the case, and to pay them on the indemnity basis, because the evidence put up to support that argument was misleading.

1 September 2026

Mackie Motors v Renault: a refused amendment did not shut out the second claim

A car dealer's first claim was struck out at the pleading stage in 2022 and its appeal failed in 2023. It sued again in 2025 on implied terms the Court of Appeal had pointed to but which nobody had pleaded. On 17 August 2026 the Circuit Commercial Court refused to strike the second claim out as an abuse of process, and refused summary judgment while saying the defendants would probably win the point at trial.

31 August 2026

Prime Way Care v Southwark: a rejected bidder wins sight of how its rivals were marked

A care provider scored 3 on a single question where 4 was the pass mark, and was knocked out of a Southwark framework procurement at the first stage. It asked to see the evaluation records of the bidders who had scored higher. On 21 July 2026 the Technology and Construction Court ordered disclosure of five of them into a lawyers only confidentiality ring, and held that a pleading drafted by a litigant in person was wide enough to put unequal treatment in issue.

30 August 2026

Apollo XI v Nexedge: a freezing order that fell now goes to an inquiry into what it cost

A freezing injunction obtained without notice was discharged as wrongly obtained. The broker it was aimed at says the order stalled a regulatory application and cost it more than five million pounds. On 28 August 2026 the Commercial Court gave permission to enforce the cross-undertaking in damages and ordered an inquiry, refusing to let the party that obtained the order argue the loss away on paper.

29 August 2026

Transport for London v Young: building the hazard fixes the duty, proving breach takes a great deal more

Two cyclists mistook a 5 to 6 cm kerb for a painted line and came off. A circuit judge held the authority that built the track liable in negligence. The Court of Appeal has set that finding aside and sent both claims back for a fresh hearing, because the judge treated a foreseeable risk and an available precaution as proof of breach.

28 August 2026

Apasen v Tower Hamlets: an inaccurate contract award notice may count as no notice at all

A council abandoned a care services procurement, then awarded interim contracts directly on the justification of extreme and unavoidable urgency. It ran a voluntary standstill of eight working days and treated that as the end of any claim to set the contracts aside. On 28 August 2026 the Technology and Construction Court refused to strike that claim out. Section 105(4) of the Procurement Act 2023 treats a published notice carrying inaccurate information as a notice never published, and what makes a notice inaccurate has not yet been decided by any court.

27 August 2026

Avon Freeholds v Cresta Court E RTM: a landlord cannot kill a right to manage claim with a notice failure that cost it nothing

A right to manage company missed one leaseholder when it sent out its invitations to participate, then served its claim notice five days before she joined the company anyway. The freeholder said the omission made the claim notice void, and the Court of Appeal agreed. On 27 August 2026 the Supreme Court allowed the company's appeal, held that the two notice rules are procedural and do not go to entitlement, and restored the decision of the Upper Tribunal.

26 August 2026

Svella Connect v Virgin Media: a framework of over 200 pages left no gap for an implied duty of good faith

A fibre network contractor said Virgin Media owed it implied duties of good faith under three framework agreements and under the settlement that took it out of two of them. On 26 August 2026 the Technology and Construction Court gave summary judgment against that case. The parties had written down their own bargain, and there was nothing left for an implied term to do.

25 August 2026

Great Asia Maritime v Orion Shipping: an express compensation clause carries loss of bargain damages without a repudiatory breach

A seller was twice not ready to hand over a ship by the cancelling date. The buyer cancelled under the standard form and claimed the gap between the contract price and the risen market, US$1.85 million. The Supreme Court dismissed the seller's appeal on 22 July 2026 and held that where a form couples a right to terminate with an express right to compensation, loss of bargain is recoverable even though the breach was not repudiatory.

24 August 2026

EMJ Plastics v Mekina Industries: 11,579 copied files, and a story about the boss that did not survive cross-examination

The operations manager of a bridge formwork manufacturer copied 11,579 company files to an external drive while still employed, then told the court a director had asked him to do it. The High Court found he was lying. Both former employees were held liable in contract and confidence, and the manager for breach of fiduciary duty as well.

23 August 2026

Barclay v Secretary of State for Transport: the Gatwick dual runway order survives, and a requirement tailpiece is held lawful

A development consent order for dual runway operations at Gatwick was attacked on policy reading, on the economic case, on carbon and on wastewater. The Planning Court dismissed both claims. On 4 August 2026 the Court of Appeal refused both applications for permission to appeal, held every ground unarguable, and certified that its decision may be cited as an authority.

22 August 2026

JKD v IKC: a refusal of interim measures was a procedural order, and section 68 could not reach it

A contractor terminated an EPC contract for prolonged force majeure and asked an ICC tribunal to stop the employer calling the performance bond. The tribunal refused, in a document it titled Procedural Order No. 4. The contractor asked the Commercial Court to treat that order as an award and set it aside for serious irregularity. The court held it was not an award, and the challenge failed at the first hurdle.

21 August 2026

Evans v JNP Group Consulting Engineers: a retirement letter with no settlement wording settled everything

Three civil engineers sued the company their practice had merged into for unpaid remuneration, for the value of their shares and for the balances on their directors' loan accounts. The company counterclaimed on warranties it had taken about the recoverability of the fee debts transferred to it. The letters each engineer signed on retirement carried no entire agreement clause and no settlement wording. The court held that they compromised the claims on both sides, and dismissed claim and counterclaim alike.

20 August 2026

Involve Visual Collaboration v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: an authority may re-open a moderation it has already closed

A bidder scored a consensus 7 on a threshold question, then 1 when the authority re-opened the moderation six weeks later, and was excluded before its price was ever marked. The Technology and Construction Court held that re-moderation was open to the authority, that one evaluator went too far in comparing the bid against an outside solution, and that the breach changed nothing.

19 August 2026

Elliott v Lloyds Syndicate 4444: an altered builder's quotation took down the whole claim

A householder claimed subsidence damage to a Grade II listed house near Bedford. To support a request for an interim payment he produced a builder's quotation that had been altered to look like structural underpinning. The Technology and Construction Court dismissed the claim in full, and held in any event that no subsidence damage had occurred while the policy was on risk.

18 August 2026

Westgreen v Kiryukhina: an advance payment clawback, and an enforcement challenge that failed on every ground

A contract administrator stripped £650,000 of advance payments out of an interim certificate before any of the contractual conditions for repaying them had been met. The adjudicator ordered the money back. On 18 August 2026 the Technology and Construction Court enforced that decision, refused a stay of execution, and awarded costs on the indemnity basis.

17 August 2026

HB (WM) v Sto: two German companies must answer a cladding claim in the English court

Three claims put at about £90 million over cladding on 18 high rise buildings. Two German defendants asked the Technology and Construction Court to set aside service out of the jurisdiction. It refused. Section 149 of the Building Safety Act 2022 has never been construed by a court, and the judge declined to construe it on an interlocutory application.

17 August 2026

E & TL Jones v Vale of Glamorgan: a project bank account that was never opened protects no one

A groundworks subcontractor was left unpaid on a certified application for £486,017.67 when ISG entered administration, then lost again in the Technology and Construction Court. The project bank account that should have held the money on trust was never set up, and the court held that the employer owed the subcontractor nothing.

16 August 2026

Wallace Estates v Durkan Estates: one trial for two jurisdictions under the Building Safety Act

The Technology and Construction Court and the First-tier Tribunal will manage and hear a building safety dispute together, with one trial and one body of evidence, and findings that bind both sets of proceedings. The judgment of 10 August 2026 sets out how, and where the limits sit.