The Financial Services Ombudsman has refused to refer a test case involving a travel insurance claim to the court in order to determine whether the volcanic ash cloud which caused so much disruption to European aviation in 2010 was not covered by the phrase ‘poor weather conditions’.
Most travel insurance policies contain limitations in cover which exclude or limit claims resulting from ‘acts of God and those relating to areas where there is civil unrest or war or to which travel is undertaken when the Foreign Office has advised against it. Normally, they allow a claim to be made where it results from adverse weather conditions.
The case involved a woman whose claim was refused by the insurer, which argued that it was not covered by the clause that allowed a claim to be made when the travel disruption resulted from adverse weather conditions. She appealed to the Ombudsman.
The ombudsman concluded that it was not a suitable case to refer to the court as a test case and made an award to the claimant.
ained flats with no common living areas does not mean that accommodation had been made available such that the members of the applicant’s family could ‘reside together’ in the ordinary meaning of the phrase. 
Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd., which became the first company to be convicted of corporate manslaughter (under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007) in February of this year, has lost an appeal against its conviction.
of the 1980s and 1990s, has led to large provisions being made for losses as the banks have abandoned attempts to fight mis-selling claims.
The number of businesses in the UK which are suffering from ‘significant’ or ‘critical’ financial problems on the first quarter of 2011 has risen to 186,000, according to a report by insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor. This is an increase of 26 per cent over the figure for the third quarter of 2010 and is 15 per cent more than the same quarter in 2010.
Under UK law, anyone who is allowed unopposed occupation of a piece of land for more than twelve years (10 years for registered land if appropriate procedures are followed) can acquire legal title to the land. Although numerous safeguards were introduced in the 