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From garage to unicorn – Employment law lessons for scaling tech teams
Catherine Bourne
This article was first published by Farming UK on 26 March 2020. In the last fortnight, at a time when many are updating their wills, reflecting on their estates and what is in store for future generations, the courts have handed down two more decisions relating to farming inheritance cases. These are not uncommon. In 2018, there were 7 proprietary estoppel cases related to farming, or farming partnership disputes out of a total 12 proprietary estoppel claims.
The decision of the Court of Appeal in DSM SFG Group Holdings & Ors –v- Kelly provides a reminder of the tension between the law of confidence, and the principle of English law providing that evidence remains admissible in civil proceedings regardless of whether it has been obtained unlawfully. The decision of the Court of Appeal in DSM SFG Group Holdings & Ors –v- Kelly provides a reminder of the tension between the law of confidence, and the principle of English law providing that evidence remains admissible in civil proceedings regardless of whether it has been obtained unlawfully.
In many cases where there is a dispute over a trust or estate, one or more of the potential parties will be a minor child (that is, aged under 18). Cases may also involve parties who do not have the requisite mental capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to engage in litigation. Such parties are commonly referred to as ‘protected parties’.
A cautionary tale can be learnt from case of Neocleous v Christine Rees [2019] EWHC 2462 (Ch) a decision of the Manchester County Court which demonstrates how binding contracts can be inadvertently formed through the exchange of emails. Neocleous was a timely decision as it followed shortly after the publication of the Law Commission’s 4 September 2019 report Electronic execution of documents that the law now recognises a variety of different electronic signatures as legally binding.
The Supreme Court case of Edwards (on behalf of the estate of the late Thomas Arthur Watkins) v Hugh James Ford Simey (A Firm) [2019] UKSC 54 provides useful insight in professional negligence cases as to how the Courts approach the relevance of “new” evidence i.e. evidence which was not available at the time of the underlying matter, in loss of chance cases.
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