04 July

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Copyright in Computer Programs and Digital Works in Nigeria

Walk into any computer repair shop in Alaba International Market or along Computer Village in Ikeja and you will almost certainly find Windows and Microsoft Office being installed on customer machines from bootleg discs or USB drives, for a small fee. Visit any Nigerian university campus and you will find students using pirated versions of SPSS, AutoCAD, and Adobe Creative Suite without a second thought. The Nigerian software market, by most credible estimates, has historically had software piracy rates among the highest in the world, a situation that persisted for decades in part because the old copyright framework provided inadequate...

09 June

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Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller General of Patents [2026] UKSC 3: How the Supreme Court Rewrote the Rules on AI Patents

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in AI and Law, Case Analysis, Educational Articles, Landmark Judgments

For twenty years, a UK patent applicant whose invention ran on a computer faced a particular kind of frustration. It was not enough to show that the invention was new, clever, or commercially valuable. The applicant first had to survive a threshold test that had nothing to do with those qualities. Under the Aerotel framework, the courts asked a preliminary question that tripped up a significant number of genuinely novel software and artificial intelligence inventions before they could even be assessed on their merits. In February 2026, the UK Supreme Court looked at that framework, found it logically flawed, and...

01 June

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Nigerian Law of Evidence: A Complete Guide for Law Students

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Evidence Law

The law of evidence is the body of rules that governs how facts are proved in judicial proceedings. It is adjectival law, meaning it regulates the machinery through which substantive law is applied rather than creating rights and liabilities of its own. It answers three questions in every case: what facts may be proved, how they may be proved, and by whom. The governing statute is the Evidence Act 2011. It applies to all judicial proceedings in courts of record in Nigeria, with specific exceptions for customary courts, area courts in civil matters, Sharia courts, and arbitration tribunals under section 256(1)....

10 May

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Edokpolo & Co. Ltd v. Sem-Edo Wire Industries Ltd & Ors. (1984) 7 S.C. 119; (1984) N.S.C.C. 553 — Supreme Court of Nigeria, 12 July 1984

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Company Law, Landmark Judgments, Study Resources

Area of Law: Company Law — Pre-Incorporation Contracts; Ratification; Corporate Personality; CAMA Every Nigerian corporate law course places this case at the centre of its pre-incorporation contracts lecture. The principle extracted from it, that a company is not bound by contracts made on its behalf before it existed, and cannot ratify them after, is stated as settled authority in textbooks, lecture notes, and examination answers. What nobody in that tradition stops to examine is Bello JSC's concurring judgment. Bello JSC agreed with the outcome. He did not agree with how the majority got there. His position, that the case should not have...

09 May

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Yalaju-Amaye v Associated Registered Engineering Contractors Ltd [1990] 4 NWLR (Pt. 145) 422

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Company Law, Landmark Judgments

Engineer Samuel Diden Yalaju-Amaye v Associated Registered Engineering Contractors Ltd & Ors (SC 198/1986) [1990] 4 NWLR (Pt. 145) 422, Supreme Court of Nigeria Area of Law: Company Law — Director Removal, Board Meeting Procedure, Minority Shareholder Protection, Foss v Harbottle A founding engineer named in his company's Articles of Association as permanent Managing Director was pushed out of his own company through a combination of shouting, a fabricated extraordinary general meeting, and forged board minutes. The Supreme Court restored him. In doing so, it confirmed that a director cannot be removed without strict compliance with the statutory procedure under the...

08 May

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Armory v. Delamirie [1722] EWHC J94; (1722) 1 Strange 505; 93 ER 664 — Court of King’s Bench, England

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

Area of Law: Property — Finder's Rights; Possessory Title; Trover; Damages The defendant's name is spelled wrong, in the case report, in every textbook, and in every citation for three hundred years. The plaintiff may not have been the person who actually found the jewel. And the case that established possession as a property right enforceable against the world was decided in the name of a boy whose social position, in 1722 England, placed him at roughly the same level as the working livestock. Start with the name. The defendant was Paul de Lamerie, two words, one capital letter, no "i" in...

07 May

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Williams v. Roffey Bros. & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd. [1990] 2 WLR 1153; [1989] EWCA Civ 5 — Court of Appeal, England

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

Area of Law: Contract — Consideration; Pre-Existing Duty Rule; Contract Modification The standard account of this case runs like this: a rigid nineteenth-century rule prevented parties from enforcing renegotiated contracts, the Court of Appeal modernised it by introducing "practical benefit" as valid consideration, and the doctrine of consideration was saved from its own absurdity. That account is not wrong. But it is incomplete in ways that matter, particularly for Nigerian contract law, where the case is cited as settled authority but has never been squarely applied, and where the problems buried inside the judgment have been transported wholesale into a legal...

06 May

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Balfour v. Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571: Court of Appeal, England

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

Balfour v. Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571; Court of Appeal, England Area of Law: Contract: Intention to Create Legal Relations; Domestic Agreements The principle that domestic agreements are presumptively non-binding for want of intention to create legal relations, the doctrine attributed to Balfour v. Balfour in every Nigerian contract textbook, every case note, every law school outline, was articulated by exactly one of the three judges who decided the case. Atkin LJ. The other two, Warrington LJ and Duke LJ, decided on entirely different grounds. They doubted whether Mrs. Balfour had provided any consideration at all. Not intention. Consideration. Two different legal...

05 May

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Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Trees House Ltd KB 130: Obiter That Outlived Its Case

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments

The most consequential doctrine in the English law of contract modification was announced by a first-instance judge, in response to a question nobody asked, in a case he decided entirely in favour of the opposing party. That is the doctrinal origin of promissory estoppel, and it tells you almost everything you need to know about how Lord Denning operated. Facts of the Case In 1937, Central London Property Trust Ltd leased a block of flats in Battersea to High Trees House Ltd on a ninety-nine-year lease at £2,500 per year.1 World War II devastated the London rental market. Bombing, evacuation, and displacement...

05 May

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Hadley v Baxendale [1854]: The Rule That Rewards Silence

Posted by Kolawole Adebowale

in Case Analysis, Landmark Judgments, Law of Contract

Hadley & Anor v Baxendale & Ors [1854] EWHC Exch J70, Court of Exchequer (England) Area of Law: Contract Law: Remoteness of Damage, Consequential Loss, Measure of Damages A note for readers new to this case: A miller's crankshaft broke. He hired a carrier to transport it to a manufacturer so a replacement could be made. The carrier delayed delivery by several days. The mill stayed shut longer than it should have. The miller sued for the lost profits. The court said no; the carrier never knew the mill's entire operation depended on that one shaft, so he could not have...

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