3 members of Terra Firma Chambers presented a Seminar to solicitors in Aberdeen on 26 June 2008. Robert Sutherland spoke about cases which had been decided by the Court of Session and the Scottish Land Court since August 2007. This article is a digest of the cases which were discussed and was distributed at the Seminar to accompany his presentation. more...

In this article, Andrew Bowen of Terra Firma Chambers, looks at the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 in the context of a challenge by financial advisers to determinations of the Financial Services Ombudsman in Bunney v Burns Anderson plc [2008] 1 BCLC 17. This article originally appeared in W. Greens Business Law Bulletin and is reproduced here with their kind permission. more...

This is a paper based on a talk given by Derek Francis on behalf of TrustBar (the Faculty of Advocates Trusts Fiduciaries and Executries Bar Group) of which he is chairman to members of Maclay Murray & Spens private client/ taxation departments in Glasgow on 19th June 2008. The paper looks at the nature of trust variation notional agreement with certain consents supplied by the court. It considers whose consents the court may supply; jurisdiction with respect to non-Scottish trusts; where judicial variation is needed where resettlement/ demanding of a denuding is possible/ not possible; situations other than beneficiary incapacity precluding resettlement; the techniques of variation; what is needed by way of instruction/ vouching; situations in which judicial variation may be desirable especially the opportunity extended to October 2008 of creating substitute s. 49C IHTA transitional serial interests; parties and representation; the problems posed by trustees petitioning; the distinction between beneficiaries including defeasible and contingent beneficiaries and those with a spes successionis and which persons with a spes (e.g. as next of kin) require to consent. more...

In this article, Andrew Bowen of Terra Firma Chambers, discusses long-running litigation, directors disqualification and human rights in the context of the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Re Blackspur Group plc (No.4). This article originally appeared in W. Greens Business Law Bulletin and is reproduced here with their kind permission. more...