Sir Christopher David Floyd, PC (born 20 December 1951), is a retired English barrister and judge. He served as a Lord Justice of Appeal from 2013 until 2021.
The son of David and Hana Floyd, Floyd was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in Natural Sciences and Law. He was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1975 and became a Bencher of his inn in 2001. In 1988, he was called to the bar of the Republic of Ireland and in 1992 was appointed a Queen's Counsel. He was appointed an Assistant Recorder in 1994 and a Recorder in 2000, being authorised as a deputy High Court judge and assigned to the Patents Court in 1998. He served as Deputy Chairman of the Copyright Tribunal from 1995 to 2007. [1] On 5 November 2007, he was appointed a High Court judge, receiving the customary knighthood, and assigned to the Chancery Division. [2] On 9 April 2013, he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal [3] and consequently appointed to the Privy Council.
A case brought by the musician Bobby Valentino in 2002 attracted media attention after Valentino performed the violin in court to illustrate a point, convincing Floyd to rule in his favour and award him damages of £100,000. [4]
In 2010, Liverpool Football Club's creditors, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, went to court to allow the club's board to proceed with selling it. Floyd ruled in favour of the creditors, thus paving the way for the sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures. [5] On 15 October 2010, Liverpool F. C. was sold to NESV for £300 million. [6]
In June 2011, Floyd heard a case brought by ITV et al. against the internet television platform TVCatchup. [7] He ruled that TVCatchup's defence of relying on section 73 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA88) was valid, allowing the service to retransmit "qualifying services", namely all BBC services, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5, over the internet. However, he excluded retransmission of any other channels under these provisions as well as retransmission to 3G mobile devices. He referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for guidance on some aspects of the case. [8] Notwithstanding the ECJ ruling that the re-transmission in question was a communication to the public within the meaning of article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29, [9] in his final order, he maintained the right of TVCatchup to rely on CDPA88 for the retransmission as a cable service of the qualifying services. [10]
In 1974 Floyd married Rosalind Jane Arscott, and they have one son and two daughters. He is a member of the Garrick Club. [1]
Thomas Ollis Hicks Sr., is an American private equity investor and sports team owner living in Dallas, Texas. Forbes magazine estimated Hicks' wealth at $1 billion in 2009, but it dropped to $700 million in 2010. Hicks co-founded the investment firm, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, previously owned 50% of the English football club Liverpool F.C., and is chairman of Hicks Holdings LLC, which owns and operates Hicks Sports Group, the company that formerly owned the Texas Rangers, the Dallas Stars, and the Mesquite Championship Rodeo. In 2010, Hicks was forced to sell the Rangers and Liverpool to satisfy his creditors, and the Stars went into bankruptcy the following year.
Consideration is an English common law concept within the law of contract, and is a necessity for simple contracts. The concept of consideration has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions, including the US.
Brian Robert Barwick is an English rugby league administrator. He has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in major sports broadcasting and administration. He was awarded an OBE in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to sport and broadcasting.
David Edmond Neuberger, Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury is an English judge. He served as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2017. He was a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary until the House of Lords' judicial functions were transferred to the new Supreme Court in 2009, at which point he became Master of the Rolls, the second most senior judge in England and Wales. Neuberger was appointed to the Supreme Court, as its President, in 2012. He now serves as a Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and the Chair of the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.
TVCatchup was an Internet television service for viewing free-to-air UK channels. It operated as a cable service and retransmitted BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, and ITV, amongst others, only in the UK. Users were able to access the service via desktop browsers as well as smartphone and tablet apps. The service was funded by advertising, with advertisements preceding the live channel stream.
Michael Townley Featherstone Briggs, Lord Briggs of Westbourne, is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. He served earlier as a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
Stone & Rolls Ltd v Moore Stephens[2009] UKHL 39 is a leading case relevant for UK company law and the law on fraud and ex turpi causa non oritur actio. The House of Lords decided by a majority of three to two that where the director and sole shareholder of a closely held private company deceived the auditors with fraud carried out on all creditors, subsequently the creditors of the insolvent company would be barred from suing the auditors for negligence from the shoes of the company. The Lords reasoned that where the company was only identifiable with one person, the fraud of that person would be attributable to the company, and the "company" could not rely on its own illegal fraud when bringing a claim for negligence against any auditors. It was the last case to be argued before the House of Lords.
Christian Purslow is a British businessman who was most recently the chief executive officer of the Premier League club Aston Villa Football Club. He was the co-founder of private equity firm MidOcean Partners and was the former managing director of Liverpool Football Club and the former managing director and head of global commercial activities at Chelsea Football Club.
Sir Martin Faulkner Broughton is a British businessman and deputy chairman of International Airlines Group. Formed in January 2011, IAG is the parent company of British Airways, Iberia and Vueling. It is a Spanish registered company with shares traded on the London Stock Exchange and Spanish Stock Exchanges. The corporate head office for IAG is in London, UK. He is also a Managing Partner at Sports Investment Partners and chairman of the sports virtual advertising company Supponor. He is a former chairman of Liverpool Football Club and also served as President of the Confederation of British Industry.
In the United Kingdom, football clubs sometimes choose to enter administration (sanction) when they are unable to pay off outstanding debts. Under the Insolvency Act 1986, a business will face a winding-up order bringing them to court and if it is shown that a business cannot pay debts as they fall due or cannot repay outstanding debts then the company will be classified as insolvent. Administration puts accountants "in charge of pretty much everything apart from coaching the players and picking the team". For a football club in administration, the "football creditors rule" requires football-related debts such as wages owed to players and staff, and transfer fees owed to other clubs to be paid first.
Sir John Frank Mummery, DL is a former Lord Justice of Appeal and is President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and a member of the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved in the UK.
Donal Gerard O'Donnell, SC is an Irish judge who is the Chief Justice of Ireland since October 2021. He has served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland since January 2010. He practised as a barrister between 1982 and 2010, specialising in commercial law and public law.
Sir Brian Henry Leveson is a retired English judge who served as the President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice.
Sir William Anthony Blackburne is a retired High Court Judge at the Royal Courts of Justice in London who is presently the Chairman of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Blackburne was Called to the Bar in 1966 from Inner Temple, although a year or two later he joined Lincoln's Inn and eventually became a Queen's Counsel in 1984. He practised from 13 Old Square. Blackburne became a High Court judge in the Chancery Division on 1 October 1993 and retired on 27 October 2009. Since retiring Blackburne sat as a High Court Judge on a part-time basis. He also served as Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn.
Administration in United Kingdom law is the main kind of procedure in UK insolvency law when a company is unable to pay its debts. The management of the company is usually replaced by an insolvency practitioner whose statutory duty is to rescue the company, save the business, or get the best result possible. While creditors with a security interest over all a company's assets could control the procedure previously through receivership, the Enterprise Act 2002 made administration the main procedure.
FHR European Ventures LLP v Cedar Capital Partners LLC[2014] UKSC 45 is a landmark decision of the United Kingdom Supreme Court which holds that a bribe or secret commission accepted by an agent is held on trust for his principal. In so ruling, the Court partially overruled Sinclair Investments (UK) Ltd v Versailles Trade Finance Ltd in favour of The Attorney General for Hong Kong v Reid (UKPC), a ruling from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on appeal from New Zealand.
The anti-deprivation rule is a principle applied by the courts in common law jurisdictions in which, according to Mellish LJ in Re Jeavons, ex parte Mackay, "a person cannot make it a part of his contract that, in the event of bankruptcy, he is then to get some additional advantage which prevents the property being distributed under the bankruptcy laws." Wood VC had earlier observed that "the law is too clearly settled to admit of a shadow of doubt that no person possessed of property can reserve that property to himself until he shall become bankrupt, and then provide that, in the event of his becoming bankrupt, it shall pass to another and not to his creditors."
The British Post Office scandal is a miscarriage of justice involving the wrongful civil and criminal prosecutions of an unknown or unpublished number of sub-postmasters (SPMs) for theft, false accounting and/or fraud. The cases constitute the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history, spanning a period of over twenty years; aspects of the scandal remain unresolved.
Provisional liquidation is a process which exists as part of the corporate insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions whereby after the lodging of a petition for the winding-up of a company by the court, but before the court hears and determines the petition, the court may appoint a liquidator on a "provisional" basis. Unlike a conventional liquidator, a provisional liquidator does not assess claims against the company or try to distribute the company's assets to creditors, as the power to realise the assets comes after the court orders a liquidation.
Michael Gordon Bloch KC is a British barrister who is a member of Blackstone Chambers.