Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi

Cavendish Square BV v Makdessi and ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis
Chelmsford railway station
Court	Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
Full case name	Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi
Decided	4 November 2015
Citation	[2015] UKSC 67
Case history
Prior action	Cavendish Square Holdings BV v Makdessi [2013] EWCA Civ 1539
Court membership
Judges sitting	Lord Neuberger Lord Mance Lord Clarke Lord Sumption Lord Carnwath Lord Toulson Lord Hodge
Keywords
Penalty clause, Consumer, unfair terms

Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi [2015] UKSC 67, together with its companion case ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis, are English contract law cases concerning the validity of penalty clauses and (in relation to ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis) the application of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Directive (as implemented in the UK by, at the time, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, now superseded by the Consumer Rights Act 2015). The UK Supreme Court ruled on both cases together on 4 November 2015, updating the established legal rule on penalty clauses and replacing the test of whether or not a disputed clause is "a genuine pre-estimate of loss" with a test asking whether it imposed a proportionate detriment in relation to any "legitimate interest" of the innocent party.^[1]

Commentators on the ruling have noted that "these cases provide some welcome clarification to the law in this area".^[2]