Unlike in England, pre-trial disclosure against a third party is generally not available in Guernsey. However, there are exceptions to this rule. This article sets out the main exceptions - namely, claims for personal injury or in respect of a person's death, ancillary orders to freezing injunctions, <I>Anton Piller</i> orders, <i>Norwich Pharmacal</i> orders and <i>Bankers Trust</i> orders.
In
Secretariat Consulting PTE Ltd v A Company, the Court of Appeal considered for the first time the question of an expert s duty to avoid a conflict of interest.(1) The Court of Appeal s decision, while not deciding the point finally, means that it is unlikely that a court will now recognise such a duty as a matter of law. The issue is a matter of contract. On the terms of the expert firm s engagement in this case, the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court s decision to grant an injunction restraining the firm from acting for a third party in a connected arbitration. The judgment contains a useful analysis of when conflicts can arise in related cases and the circumstances in which a large organisation offering expert or litigation support services may find itself conflicted.
Patents are restricted to a specific territory and no single patent confers protection for inventions worldwide. However, an international patent application does exist. Filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international patent application aims to facilitate the procedures for protecting inventions in multiple countries in a cost-effective and insightful way.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates aviation, railroad, highway, marine and pipeline accidents to determine their probable cause and issues safety recommendations to reduce the risk of future accidents. This article considers the analytic phase of NTSB investigations, which follows the factual phase.
Party submissions of proposed findings and recommendations
Parties to an NTSB investigation can submit proposed findings and recommendations. The five presidentially-appointed NTSB members review these submissions in conjunction with the draft accident report from the NTSB staff.
NTSB investigations make use of working groups to focus on different aspects of an accident. Each working group comprises a chair from the NTSB, additional NTSB investigators and a representative from each party. These party representatives must have technical expertise in the working group s focus area and cannot be lawyers.
The much-anticipated Energy White Paper was published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (
BEIS ) on 14 December 2020, setting out its strategy for the UK s energy transition over the next decade. The Energy White Paper focuses on strategy in six key areas: consumers, power, the energy system, buildings, industrial energy and oil & gas.
Much of what has been set out in the Energy White Paper is not new. For one, the Energy White Paper builds on the UK government s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution (the
Ten Point Plan ). However, committing this strategy to a White Paper brings the proposals set out by BEIS one step closer to future legislation.