Insights

On 15 February 2005 the European Court of Justice (the "EJC") delivered its judgment on the long running Tetra Laval case. The EJC dismissed the European Commission's (the "Commission") appeal against the judgment of the European Court of First Instance (the "CFI"). However, there was some satisfaction for the Commission in relation to the standard of evidence required to enable the Commission to prohibit a merger under the EC Merger Regulation.

The European Court of Justice ('Court') has published a highly significant
judgment on procurement matters - Fabricom SA v Belgium (Judgment Joined Cases
C-21/03, C-34/03, 3 March 2005). The decision relates to the interpretation
of both the classic (public sector) and the utilities public procurement directives.



Fabricom SA is a contractor which regularly submits tenders for public contracts
in the water, energy, transport and telecoms sectors. The Court was asked by

The Working Time Directive (93/104/EC) was adopted under article 118A of the
Treaty establishing the European Community to "encourage improvements,
especially of the working environment, as regards safety and health of workers".
Offshore workers were initially excluded from the Directive when it came into
force in 1998, as the Commission and member states agreed that these sectors
would require their own special rules. The main proposal, the Horizontal Amending

From time to time there are circumstances in which the device of a disposition a non domino, that is, a deed of transfer of title to heritable property by
someone who is not the owner of that property, can be used to useful effect
to found a prescriptive title to a property, for example in the case of a piece
of apparently ownerless ground, where no owner can be found after appropriate
searches and enquiries have been carried out. It is not a device that can be

A sponsorship deal was recently struck between the Scottish Hockey Union ("SHU")
and Shepherd+ Wedderburn ("S+W"), covering both the men's Scottish
Cup and the women's National League Cup tournaments. For SHU, this deal represented
an opportunity to develop the game at grass-roots level in Scotland, allowing
further investment in equipment and facilities. S+W were delighted to secure
a national sports sponsorship and in particular to be associated with a sport
which is known to attract a dedicated professional audience.

The latest planning policy document to be published by the Scottish Executive is Scottish Planning Policy 15: Planning for Rural Development, which updates and replaces NPPG15: Rural Development, published in 1999. SPPs provide statements of national policy on aspects of land use and planning matters and set out guidance on the approach and objectives that should underpin planning policies and assist local planning authorities in their determination of matters at a local level.

The Inland Revenue has published amendments to the SDLT6 Guidance Notes for completion of SDLT forms. They replace previous versions of relevant parts of the guidance in the SDLT6.

The amendments relate to:

- Section 2 of SDLT6 - Question 2 of the SDLT1 (Description of Transaction) and provide guidance about the correct code to use (A, F, L or O)

- Section 5 of SDLT6 – which concerns the SDLT4 form (version 2) which is in two parts – About the Transaction (Questions 1 to 9) and About Leases (Questions 10 to 39)

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (the "CAT") has rejected an appeal by Argos and Littlewoods against an Office of Fair Trading
("OFT") decision that they were guilty of operating an illegal price fixing cartel
in respect of Hasbro toys and games. The two companies have been
fined a total of £22.6m.

The Court of Appeal, in Department for Work & Pensions v Atasha Webley, has held that a failure to renew or extend a fixed-term
contract did not amount to less favourable treatment of a fixed-term employee
in comparison to a permanent employee.

Forming part of a wider review of Trust Law in Scotland, the Scottish Law Commission
has produced a Discussion Paper on Trusts and Trust Administration (SLC Discussion
Paper No 126), which looks at the assumption, resignation and removal of trustees,
the powers that trustees have to deal with the administration of the trust
estate, and the involvement of the Courts in aspects of these procedures.

There is provision in the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) (Amendment)
Act 1933 requiring the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland to offer
to adjoining owners an opportunity to purchase ground originally transferred
for the erection of a church or manse whenever they plan to sell that ground.
It applies only to ground provided for certain churches and manses listed in
Schedule 10 of the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act 1925 (extended