All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1585
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Arbitrary decisions
Picture this: an international arbitration, millions of dollars at stake; an expert is called to give evidence on damages right at the end of the hearing. This is what he says happened: ‘Everyone had flown miles to come to the arbitration. I was the last witness. One of the counsel ...
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Banking on caution
Christopher Digby-Bell’s letter urging lawyers to rein in their banking clients rang a bell with me. In the early 1970s, when I was working as a newly qualified solicitor for a magic circle firm, I raised a query with a secondary banking client concerning the wisdom of some of their ...
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Torch bearer
Kate Hincks, vice-chair of the Lawyers with Disabilities Division of the Law Society, was chosen from 30,000 People’s Champions to carry the Olympic torch through Royal Wootton Bassett on its journey around Britain. Hincks has been volunteering since she was 11 years old and currently ...
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Red-tape bonfire plan for legal services bureaucracy
The government will today invite the legal profession to identify business-restricting regulations, naming three ‘sector champions’ as intermediaries. In the legal services stage of prime minister David Cameron’s ‘red tape challenge’ the Ministry of Justice has pinpointed more than 150 regulations suitable for scrutiny. Lawyers will ...
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Chinese law firm looks to build UK ‘bridge’
A ‘win-win’ relationship forged between UK solicitors and one of China’s largest law firms could see UK practitioners claiming their share of China’s rapidly growing legal services market, the Gazette was told last week.
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Clarke plea on prisons population
Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke has called for a ‘pause’ in prison population growth as the numbers creep closer to the UK’s operational capacity. At a hearing of the Commons Justice Committee last week Clarke described overcrowding in UK prisons as ‘one of the scourges of ...
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Insurers set for referral to competition watchdog over inflated premiums
Insurance companies are taking advantage of the system to inflate premiums for drivers by £225m a year, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) reports today. The competition watchdog says that after a road traffic accident, insurers of the not-at-fault driver and others, such as brokers, ...
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Trust in lawyers falling, says consumer panel
Consumer satisfaction with the value for money of legal services has risen over the past year, but trust in lawyers has fallen, according to the second ‘tracker’ survey carried out for the Legal Services Consumer Panel. The YouGov survey showed that satisfaction with the value for ...
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Conveyancing panels
The recent announcement of automatic admission for CQS firms to the HSBC panel is a welcome return to normality. Perhaps not quite ‘as you were’, but a major step towards recognition that the best interests of our clients and their borrowers are served by a diversity of choice within the ...
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Plaid Cymru hails legal devolution
Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd has insisted Wales can benefit from a separate legal jurisdiction - despite warnings it may harm the principality’s appeal to business. Llywd told the House of Commons last week that there would be legal and economic advantages to devolving the administration of justice. ...
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Lawyers must demonstrate sound judgement in turbulent times
History describes circumstances where moral attitudes change. Slavery was accepted as perfectly normal for centuries, indeed a reflection of an ordered universe; today it is considered abhorrent.
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'Self-serving' interpreter figures slammed
The shadow justice minister has criticised as ‘self-serving’ performance data released on the company contracted to provide court interpreters. The data, published by the Ministry of Justice last week, revealed that hundreds of cases were still being disrupted by a shortage of interpreters three months into the contract. ...
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Food for thought
Fresh from spreading the word to breakfast time news audiences about the new services the Co-operative Legal Services plans to offer to consumers, its managing director met the trade press for ‘lunch’ to lay down the gauntlet to traditional law firms.
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Garden leave
Legal gardens will be doing their bit for London’s annual celebration of its hidden - and often exclusive - green squares. Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn as well as Holloway and Wormwood Scrubs Prison gardens are all taking part in Open Garden Squares Weekend.
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Local government
Council tax - Respondent being non-British spouse of foreign student Harrow Borough of London v Ayiku: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court (London) (Mr Justice Sales): 9 May 2012 The Administrative ...
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Government move to replace tribunal judges splits profession
Government plans to save time in employment tribunals by using ‘legal officers’ in place of judges appear to have split the profession. One employment specialist described the idea as ‘short-sighted and utterly wrong’, while another told the Gazette that any innovation that ‘allows heads to ...
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Government must not ignore Strasbourg’s overtures on prisoner voting
How did the government get itself into such a mess over prisoners voting? After human rights judges stretched out the hand of friendship to the UK last week, David Cameron promptly bit it off, willingly giving parliament an undertaking that he would not succumb to what one MP had described ...
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Intellectual property
Database rights - Infringement Football Dataco Ltd and other companies v Sportradar GMBH and another company; Football Dataco Ltd and other companies v Stan James Abingdon Ltd and other companies: Chancery Division (Mr Justice Floyd): 8 May 2012 ...