Some of us are old enough to remember that the JCT With Contractor’s Design contract 1981 introduced design and build so as to place “single point responsibility” on the contractor. So, it was the contractor’s job to ratify the Employer’s Requirements in order to complete the design.

A recent Supreme Court ruling (R (Haworth) v HMRC) has highlighted the difficult line trodden by taxpayers who decide to challenge HMRC’s opinion that they are not entitled to the tax advantage conferred by entering into a particular tax arrangement.

When someone dies and leaves a will it is for the executor named within the will to apply for a grant of probate to allow them to administer the estate.

One of the grounds for challenging a will is that the deceased did not have the requisite mental capacity when the will was made. Ultimately the focus of the court is to ensure that the will genuinely represents the deceased’s wishes.

A recent ruling by the Upper Tribunal in Dunsby v HMRC [2021] has confirmed that efforts to avoid paying income tax by deploying an elaborate tax avoidance scheme can be thwarted by taking ‘a realistic view of the facts’ or, in other words, applying some common sense.

After the First Tier Tribunal found in favour of the beneficiary of a Remuneration Trust (Marlborough v HMRC) in September 2021, a differently constituted First Tier Tribunal, when considering an almost identical scheme used by Strategic Branding, has found in favour of HMRC, having determined not to adopt the reasoning applied in Marlborough.

Deciding whether to contest a trust is a big decision. It is important to make sufficient investigations at the outset to ascertain the realistic prospect of your claim succeeding.

The final Ockenden Report into the failures of the maternity unit at Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust was published on 30 March 2022.

Our usual round up of news includes a brief note on the rolling timetable for the SFI, changes to autumn muckspreading rules, the extension to the season workers’ scheme, woodland creation grants, the new law to try and stop hare coursing and the new Tenancy Working Group.

In this month's round-up, we explain the advantages of mediation and how it can help to resolve workplace disputes quickly and cost-effectively; an update on various Private Members' Bills that are currently going through Parliament; and a case update featuring a long running disability discrimination case.