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Specific performance is an equitable remedy in the law of contract, whereby a court issues an order requiring a party to perform a specific act, such as to complete performance of the contract. It is typically available in the sale of land law, but otherwise is not generally available if damages are an appropriate alternative. Specific performance is almost never available for contracts of personal service, although performance may also be ensured through the threat of proceedings for contempt of court.
In law, liable means "responsible or answerable in law; legally obligated". Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law and can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, torts, taxes, or fines given by government agencies. The claimant is the one who seeks to establish, or prove, liability.
Piercing the corporate veil or lifting the corporate veil is a legal decision to treat the rights or duties of a corporation as the rights or liabilities of its shareholders. Usually a corporation is treated as a separate legal person, which is solely responsible for the debts it incurs and the sole beneficiary of the credit it is owed. Common law countries usually uphold this principle of separate personhood, but in exceptional situations may "pierce" or "lift" the corporate veil.
A legal remedy, also referred to as judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes another court order to impose its will in order to compensate for the harm of a wrongful act inflicted upon an individual.
English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil, rather than criminal law, that usually requires a payment of money to make up for damage that is caused. Alongside contracts and unjust enrichment, tort law is usually seen as forming one of the three main pillars of the law of obligations.
Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd[1896] UKHL 1, [1897] AC 22 is a landmark UK company law case. The effect of the House of Lords' unanimous ruling was to uphold firmly the doctrine of corporate personality, as set out in the Companies Act 1862, so that creditors of an insolvent company could not sue the company's shareholders for payment of outstanding debts.
Self-defence is a defence permitting reasonable force to be used to defend one's self or another. This defence arises both from common law and the Criminal Law Act 1967. Self-defence is a justification defence rather than an excuse.
Adams v Cape Industries plc [1990] Ch 433 is a UK company law case on separate legal personality and limited liability of shareholders. The case also addressed long-standing issues under the English conflict of laws as to when a company would be resident in a foreign jurisdiction such that the English courts would recognise the foreign court's jurisdiction over the company. It has in effect been superseded by Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc, which held that a parent company could be liable for the actions of a subsidiary on ordinary principles of tort law.
Asset freezing is a legal process which prevents a defendant whether innocent or guilty to an action from dissipating their assets from beyond the jurisdiction of a court so as to frustrate a potential judgment. It is widely recognised in other common law jurisdictions and such orders can be made to have world-wide effect. It is variously construed as part of a court's inherent jurisdiction to restrain breaches of its process.
Misfeasance in public office is a cause of action in the civil courts of England and Wales and certain Commonwealth countries. It is an action against the holder of a public office, alleging in essence that the office-holder has misused or abused their power. The tort can be traced back to 1703 when Chief Justice Sir John Holt decided that a landowner could sue a police constable who deprived him of his right to vote. The tort was revived in 1985 when it was used so that French turkey producers could sue the Ministry of Agriculture over a dispute that harmed their sales.
The English law of unjust enrichment is part of the English law of obligations, along with the law of contract, tort, and trusts. The law of unjust enrichment deals with circumstances in which one person is required to make restitution of a benefit acquired at the expense of another in circumstances which are unjust.
Attorney General v Blake[2000] UKHL 45, [2001] 1 AC 268 is a leading English contract law case on damages for breach of contract. It established that in some circumstances, where ordinary remedies are inadequate, restitutionary damages may be awarded.
Gilford Motor Co Ltd v Horne [1933] Ch 935 is a UK company law case concerning piercing the corporate veil. It gives an example of when courts will treat shareholders and a company as one, in a situation where a company is used as an instrument of fraud.
Lubbe v Cape Plc [2000] UKHL 41 is a conflict of laws case, which is also highly significant for the question of lifting the corporate veil in relation to tort victims. In this case it was alleged, and postulated by the House of Lords, that in principle it is possible to show that a parent company owes a direct duty of care in tort to anybody injured by a subsidiary company in a group.
Trustor AB v Smallbone [2001] EWHC 703 (Ch) is a UK company law case concerning piercing the corporate veil.
The corporate veil in the United Kingdom is a metaphorical reference used in UK company law for the concept that the rights and duties of a corporation are, as a general principle, the responsibility of that company alone. Just as a natural person cannot be held legally accountable for the conduct or obligations of another person, unless they have expressly or implicitly assumed responsibility, guaranteed or indemnified the other person, as a general principle shareholders, directors and employees cannot be bound by the rights and duties of a corporation. This concept has traditionally been likened to a "veil" of separation between the legal entity of a corporation and the real people who invest their money and labor into a company's operations.
Chandler v Cape plc [2012] EWCA Civ 525 is a decision of the Court of Appeal which addresses the availability of damages for a tort victim from a parent company, in circumstances where the victim suffered industrial injury during employment by a subsidiary company.
Voluntary intoxication, where a defendant has wilfully consumed drink or drugs before committing acts which constitute the prohibited conduct of an offence, has posed a considerable problem for the English criminal law. There is a correspondence between incidences of drink and crimes of violence, such as assaults and stabbings. Accordingly, there is a debate about the effect of voluntary intoxication on the mental element of crimes, which is often that the defendant foresaw the consequences, or that they intended them.
Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd[2013] UKSC 34, [2013] 2 AC 415 is a leading UK company law decision of the UK Supreme Court concerning the nature of the doctrine of piercing the corporate veil, resulting trusts and equitable proprietary remedies in the context of English family law.
VTB Capital plc v Nutritek International Corp[2013] UKSC 5, [2013] 2 AC 337 is an English company law case, concerning piercing the corporate veil for fraud.