Occupy London in legal challenge to UBS bank over City squat

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A demonstrator from the Occupy London movement is searched by police as he leaves a building owned by banking giant UBS in the City of London. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

Banking giant UBS was granted an immediate and final possession order for its property in a one-sided hearing that circumvented the basic principles of justice, an appeal court has been told.
Lawyers acting for the Occupy movement's Bank of Ideas squat in the City of London said that a special night hearing conducted over the phone between UBS lawyers and Mrs Justice Proudman, of which activists were given less than 45 minutes notice by text message, represented a "serious deviation from civil procedure rules".
The text to activists from UBS lawyers at 9.18pm on 18 November gave notice of the hearing at 9.45 that night but not where it would be conducted or how to contact the judge, who granted the possession order from her home.
During the appeal hearing on Monday, Stephen Knafler QC, for Occupy, told the court that the telephone conference between UBS lawyers and Proudman "can't be described as a trial let alone a fair one".
UBS lawyers said the rushed hearing, in which UBS was granted full possession of its vacant building complex with hundreds of rooms on Sun Street, near Liverpool Street station, was necessary because of risk to health and safety.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/06/occupy-london-legal-challe...