Month: May 2012

The Copyright Review Committee has announced a limited extension of time for submissions. There has been a good response to the Committee’s wide-ranging Consultation Paper (you can download a pdf of the Paper here (via DJEI) or here (from this site); and summaries of each of the chapters are linked from this page).

However, although the date for submissions has already been extended from Friday 13 April 2012 to Thursday 31 May 2012, there have been many further requests for another extension. The Committee has therefore decided to extend the closing date to close of business on Friday 29 June 2012, in the following two limited circumstances only:

• first, parties who intend to make a submission to the Committee, but who feel that they cannot do so before the existing deadline of close of business Thursday 31 May 2012, should apply to the Committee before that date for an extension until close of business on Friday 29 June 2012. The Committee will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis.
• second, the Committee will soon publish on their website – probably here – every submission that will have been received by the current deadline of 31 May 2012, and the Committee will accept responses to those submissions until close of business on Friday 29 June 2012.

The online questionnaire will be available only until Thursday 31 May 2012. Thereafter, submissions which have specifically been granted an extension until close of business on Friday 29 June 2012, or responses to other submissions, should be made either by email or by post to Copyright Review, Room 517, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Submission by email is preferred; and, where this is done, respondents are requested to ensure that electronic submissions are furnished in an unprotected format.

It worth noting again that this is a limited extension, only for two specific purposes. However, It has always been the intention of the Committee to post submissions on their website to encourage engagement, consultation and participation, and this limited extension will facilitate this objective.

Hot on the heels of McKillen v Misland (Cyprus) Investments Limited [2012] EWHC 1158 (Ch) (26 April 2012), about which I blogged in my previous post, the ever-wonderful Stare Decisis Hibernia blog brings news of another open justice case in the Irish High Court. In In re Skytours Travel Ltd, Doyle v Bergin [2010] IEHC 531 (9 July 2010) Laffoy J refused to hear a dispute between shareholders in camera. Section 205 of the Companies Act, 1963 (also here) allows a shareholder who complains that the affairs of the company are being conducted in an oppressive manner to apply to the court for a remedy, and subsection (7) allows the court to hear such an application in camera. In particular, section 205(7) provides:

If, in the opinion of the court, the hearing of proceedings under this section would involve the disclosure of information the publication of which would be seriously prejudicial to the legitimate interests of the company, the court may order that the hearing of the proceedings or any part thereof shall be in camera.

Article 34.1 of the Constitution provides that

Justice shall be administered in courts established by law by judges appointed in the manner provided by this Constitution, and, save in such special and limited cases as may be prescribed by law, shall be administered in public.

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Thus (probably) spoke a nineteenth century Irish judge, Sir James Mathew (1830-1908) (pictured left). The Ritz is now owned by David and Frederick Barclay, and they are at present locked in what the media are describing as “bitter” legal proceedings (in tabloid-speak, is there any other kind of legal dispute?) being taken against them in London by Irish businessman and property developer Paddy McKillen. McKillen and the Barclays own stakes in a high profile hotel group; and in these proceedings, McKillen alleges that the Barclays have been attempting to seize control of the group by unlawful means. He is no stranger to high-stakes litigation, having successfully thwarted the National Asset Management Agency in the Irish courts in Dellway Investments v NAMA [2011] IESC 4 (3 February 2011).

In the London proceedings, much dirty linen had already been laundered in public, and McKillen balked at the prospect of having to wash more, seeking an order of the court to keep sensitive information about his personal business financial affairs away from the prying eyes, not only of the media and the public, but also of the defendants! Unsurprisingly, the application failed (Irish Independent | Irish Times here and here | PA | RTÉ News). In a judgment delivered last week, Richards J held that the basic principle of open justice required the whole of the trial to be heard in public, and that the Mr McKillen’s evidence came nowhere near to overcoming that basic principle.
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