Is Ed’s energy freeze lawful?

The centrepiece of Ed Miliband’s speech to Labour’s conference yesterday was this: If we win the election 2015 the next Labour government will freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017. Your bills will not rise. It will benefit millions of families and millions of businesses. Since then there’s been some question whether […]

What’s wrong with the Premier League’s statement? Have drugs got anything to do with it?

Apologies for going on about football. I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about the suggestion that today’s ECJ ruling leaves room for the FA Premier League to use copyright law to continue preventing pubs from using foreign decoders to broadcast matches. In its carefully-worded statement on the ruling, the Premier League makes much of […]

EU law v FA Premier League: a further thought

Since my previous post, I’ve read one or two suggestions on the web and Twitter that Karen Murphy didn’t actually win against the Premier League, because its copyright in its anthem etc. means she can’t show NOVA matches anyway. Dan Sabbagh on the Guardian website for instance writes: Unfortunately, the court held that pubs – […]

EU law 2 FA Premier League 0

Today the Grand Chamber of the ECJ gave its preliminary ruling in two joined cases, FA Premier League v QC Leisure and others and Murphy v Media Protection Services. The ruling isn’t on BAILII yet; but it is available on the ECJ’s own website. [Update: here’s the BAILII version]. The case is rightly being reported […]

No. 10 “secretly commissioned legal advice”

The Telegraph, reporting today on tension between 10 Downing Street and the Department for Business over implementing the Agency Workers Directive, tells us Downing Street has been told by lawyers that the Business Secretary’s department has “gold-plated” the legislation with additional rules that need not have been included, despite a pledge by the Coalition not […]

Can the NewsCorp-BSkyB deal be stopped?

A lot of people must be wondering this, given recent allegations and revelations about phone hacking by the News of the World. So can the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt now block the planned merger of News Corporation and BSkyB? He has already said he is minded to allow it, subject to certain undertakings relating in […]

Can the Danes ban Marmite?

Jon Worth (surely Britain’s leading blogger on EU affairs) has the story that it’s now illegal to sell Marmite in Denmark. The Danish embassy has been anxious to stress that Marmite is not banned, but that is, I’m sorry to say, slightly misleading. It’s clearly unlawful at the moment to sell Marmite in Denmark, as […]

British jobs for British workers

I must admit to having some sympathy for the workers at Lindsey oil refinery who protested against the shipping in of Italian workers to carry out work there; and with those Labour MPs like Jon Cruddas who have called for a change to the European legislation which undoubtedly permits what the company in question, IREM, […]

Dept. of Revenue of Kentucky v Davis

Before I end my blog holiday and come back from New York, I thought you might just be slightly interested in this US Supreme Court case showing that non-discriminatory inter-state commerce is protected in a way analogous to (thought different from, obviously) free movement law in the EU. Here, a discriminatory tax provision was saved […]

Commission launches Northern Rock state aid investigation

The European Commission has decided to investigate the UK’s state aid to Northern Rock. No surprise, this: such a massive rescue of a bank was bound to be looked into fully. And it seems to me inconceivable that the Commission will not, ultimately, give clearance in principle, even if it requires minor adjustments to the […]