Law digests: 17 January 2025

Contract

Salem and another v Salem and others [2024] EWHC 3311 (Ch)

This was an application seeking summary dismissal of an application to enforce a term in a settlement deed. The court held that the relevant term (clause 6.5) was an unenforceable ‘agreement to agree’ on expert determination, as there were no sufficiently objective criteria to assess the reasonableness of the parties’ endeavours to agree a binding process. Even if clause 6.5 was binding, the court found that it imposed a time-limited obligation on the parties to agree a binding process for expert determination, unless an extension was agreed in writing.

Costs

Lewis v Francis and another [2025] EWHC 17 (Admin)

The primary question was whether the magistrates' court was correct in law to determine that it had the power to order costs against the applicant where the finding of an unnecessary act was on the basis that the evidence presented was too weak to satisfy the criminal standard of proof. The court ruled that the district judge's decision to order the appellant to pay the respondents' costs of unsuccessful statutory nuisance