Gas in UK Law

In these circumstances I can see no justification for a narrow or strained construction of the ruling of the European Court of Justice which applies to a body "under the control of the state." Similarly, I can see no justification for a narrow or strained construction of the ruling of the European Court of Justice which applies to a body which has "special powers beyond those which result from the normal rules applicable in relations between individuals."

The application for planning permission did not include any development at Knapton. Paragraph 122 of the National Planning Policy Framework ("NPPF") advises planning authorities that they should focus on whether the development is an acceptable use of land, rather than on control of processes or emissions where these are subject to approval under pollution control regimes, and it should be assumed that those regimes will operate effectively.

Mr. McCaughran on a number of occasions submitted that "the purpose" of the provisions relating to the Transmission Charges was to allow the seller to recover "costs of and associated with the transportation of gas to Ballylumford". I accept that Clause 2.1(b) of the GSA envisaged that the buyer would pay "a charge for the costs of … gas transportation along the Pipeline" (my emphasis), which suggests that such charge will cover all the costs of transportation.

The factual matrix evidence that shows this was the following. The GSA was, as I have already said, based upon the standard form of LTI contract in use in 1992, namely LTI3. Under this form of contract, all purchasers of gas from British Gas paid the same commodity prices. The provisions of Annex 5 were specifically negotiated to cover the additional costs of transporting the gas from Great Britain to Ballylumford.

It means that a plaintiff prima facie establishes negligence where: (1) it is not possible for him to prove precisely what was the relevant act or omission which set in train the events leading to the accident; but (ii) on the evidence as it stands at the relevant time it is more likely than not that the effective cause of the accident was some acts or omission of the defendant or of someone for whom the defendant is responsible, which act or omission constitutes a failure to take proper care for the plaintiff a safety.

There is, however, a second question connected with the construction of the Act on which it is difficult to reach precision. "It is not because the act out of which an action arises is within their power", said Lord Buckmaster (page 247), "that a public authority enjoys the benefit of the statute. It is because the act is one which is either an act in the direct execution of a statute, or in the discharge of a public duty, or the exercise of a public authority."

When a citizen boards such a car, in one sense he makes, by paying a fare, a contract; but the boarding of the car, the payment of the fare, and the charging of the corporation with the responsibility for safe carriage are all matters of right on the part of the passenger, a public right of carriage which he shares with all his fellow citizens, correlative to the public duty which the corporation owes to all … But where the right of the individual cannot be correlated with a statutory or public duty to the individual, the foundation of the relations of parties does not lie in anything but a private bargain which it was open for either the municipality or the individual citizen, consumer, or customer to enter into or to decline."