A post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU could be even more complicated after Europe’s top court ruled yesterday that all member states must approve deals struck by the European Commission.

The Court of Justice of the EU ruled in a challenge brought by the European Council, which is made up of the heads of government of each EU member state, regarding a trade deal with Singapore. The judges found that the provisions of the deal “do not fall within the exclusive competence of the European Union, so that the agreement cannot, as it stands, be concluded without the participation of the member states”.

Lawyers predicted that the judgment could create further complications around a trade agreement once the UK quits the EU. According to Mark Simpson, a partner in the London office of the transatlantic law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, the ruling “means that once the European Commission has negotiated what it believes to be a good deal for the EU it must obtain full member state approval – including all relevant national and regional parliaments – before a comprehensive deal can be done”.

Simpson said that despite the ruling concerning a deal with Singapore, it had “clear read-across” to the UK-EU Brexit negotiations. “It will inevitably affect the time that needs to be factored in for conclusion of the … trade agreement that the UK government hopes to negotiate as the basis of the post-Brexit trading relationship with the EU,” he predicted.

However, the ruling might also work in Britain’s favour, he said. “The decision also highlights how the UK could have a comparative advantage in negotiating comprehensive free trade agreements with other countries post-Brexit. It is now clear that the EU will have to navigate time-consuming approval processes with member states before the benefits of trade liberalisation can be banked, whereas the UK should be able to move more quickly to conclude free trade agreements with other countries once it has settled its exit from the EU.”

An Oxford University student who stabbed her boyfriend could be spared jail after a judge remarked on her “extraordinary talent” and said that custody would damage her career.

Lavinia Woodward, 24, an aspiring heart surgeon, had met the man, who was educated at Cambridge, on Tinder. During a drink and drug-fuelled argument punched and swiped at him with a bread knife. She then stabbed him in the leg and hurled a laptop, glass and a jam jar at him at Christ Church, Oxford.

Woodward admitted a charge of unlawful wounding at Oxford crown court and Judge Ian Pringle said the offence would normally mean a custodial sentence.

However, unusually, the judge delayed sentencing for four months and hinted that she would not be jailed to give her time to prove that she was conquering her cocaine habit. Judge Pringle also said expressed concern that custody could affect her career after hearing that her college, which gave her outstanding testimonials, would allow her to return in October.

The judge said: “It seems to me that if this was a one-off, a complete one-off, to prevent this extraordinarily able young lady from not following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to, would be a sentence which would be too severe. What you did will never, I know, leave you but it was pretty awful, and normally it would attract a custodial sentence, whether it is immediate or suspended.”

Woodward, who suffers from a drug addiction, was in court to hear the judge's remarks and is now in Milan with her mother.

A woman has won the right to sue the doctors who failed to tell her that her father suffered from a hereditary brain disease before she gave birth to her own child.

The woman discovered after giving birth that she had the same Huntington’s gene as her father. Her daughter, now seven, has a 50 per cent chance of inheriting the incurable degenerative disease.

The woman, in her 40s, said that she would never have had a child had she known about her father’s condition. He did not want to tell her because he feared that she would kill herself or have an abortion.

After a landmark challenge at Court of Appeal, heard by Lady Justice Gloster and Lord Justice Underhill in March, she will now seek to sue her father’s doctors at three NHS trusts for negligence in failing to inform her. The judges gave her permission to bring her claim yesterday. A judge in the lower courts had previously struck out her case, saying that there was no “reasonably arguable duty of care” owed to her by the doctors.

When the woman brings her claim judges will have to consider redefining the confidential relationship between doctors and patients. They will rule on whether medical staff have a duty of care to inform family members that they may be at risk of inheriting a serious disease or whether their only legal duty is to protect the confidentiality of the patient, her father.

The legal team for the woman, who has been identified only as C, included Lizanne Gumbel, QC, Henry Witcomb, QC, and Jim Duffy, all of One Crown Office Row. They argued that not telling the mother reduced her autonomy because it deprived her of the information necessary to choose whether to terminate her pregnancy because of the risk of passing on a life-threatening hereditary disease.

Jonathan Zimmern, C’s solicitor and a partner at the London law firm Fieldfisher, said: “Whatever the ultimate outcome of C’s claim, the judgment is hugely important for clinical geneticists practising in this field. It will reinforce the professional duties that already govern their clinical practice, and it may well impact on future legal cases.”

London taxi drivers are to sue transport authorities in the capital over the decision to renew an operating licence for Uber, the controversial “gig economy” private-hire business.

The GMB union announced yesterday that it had instructed lawyers to send a letter before action to Transport for London signalling the intention to bring judicial review proceedings of the licensing decision. The union alleged that TfL had not adhered to its “statutory responsibility to ensure the safety of both the public and private hire drivers in London”.

In a letter to transport officials, lawyers for the union from the London firm Leigh Day said it wass “GMB’s contention that the business model upon which [Uber] operates … necessitates Uber drivers in London having to work excessive hours”. “This Uber business model … operates to the detriment of the health and safety of Uber drivers in London, of other road users in London, and of those who avail themselves of Uber’s services in London,” the letter said.

It went on to say that for TfL to lawfully discharge its statutory obligations it must ensure that Uber limits and enforces the maximum daily, weekly and annual hours that its drivers are permitted to work, as well as limiting the number of drivers permitted by Uber to work within London. It also called on TfL to ensure that Uber drivers in the capital are paid a minimum guaranteed income.

Uber has consistently denied that its operations breach health and safety regulations. A TfL spokesman said: “We do not comment on the status of individual licence applications.”

Sapna Malik, one of the solicitors accused of misconduct over claims against the British Army, told a disciplinary hearing yesterday that she had not been “reckless” in making payments to an Iraqi fixer.

Malik, a partner at Leigh Day, told the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in London that she did not deliberately break professional rules in dealing with Mazin Younis, an Iraqi “fixer”. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) alleges that a £25,000 referral fee she approved to Younis, who helped to organise meetings with Iraqi clients, was “improper”.

The tribunal was told that the payment to Younis, made in December 2008, looked as if it was for historical cases and was therefore in breach of the rules. Prosecutors argued that Malik drafted the agreement without having read the rules.

Andrew Tabachnik, QC, of 39 Essex Chambers, for the SRA, said that the payment was made in “circumstances which can be characterised as reckless” and that Malik did not take “any steps to get to the regulatory position before it was made". The barrister also said that it could be considered as a matter that impairs integrity.

Malik, who qualified as a solicitor in 1998, denied the allegation of recklessness, saying that any error was “recategorised” and put right after it was spotted. Tabachnik asked her, “do you accept that you agreed to authorise [the payment] before you looked sufficiently at the regulatory restriction which may or may not apply?” She replied: “I accept that it would have been better if I had.”

She told the tribunal: “I did not think I was being too clever or tricksy....but finding a way forward that would not circumvent the SRA’s rules but comply with them.”

Leigh Day pursued damages claims against the Ministry of Defence over the alleged mistreatment and unlawful killing of captives at Camp Abu Naji in Iraq following the Battle of Danny Boy in May 2004. In December 2014, the long-running al-Sweady Inquiry dismissed the allegations as “false”.

Malik and Martyn Day, co-founder of Leigh Day, face 16 misconduct charges, while their fellow solicitor Anna Crowther faces four, including an allegation of destroying a key document, and the firm is charged with 11 counts. All respondents deny the charges.

• Correction: In The Brief yesterday, we said that the word “bribe” was used several times in emails between Sapna Malik and Martyn Day of the law firm Leigh Day. In fact the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that the word appeared once.

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