All Law Gazette articles in Archive – Page 1603
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‘Bill of Rights’ consultation shows how bad laws get made
For anyone curious to see the process of rubbish ideas being turned into statutes that operate sub-optimally, I recommend reading the second consultation of the ‘Commission on a Bill of Rights’. This is not to say that Sir Hugh Lewis, the commission’s chair, is ...
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Mine's a Baileys
Still humbled by the phenomenal response to the legal cocktail competition, Obiter’s representatives on earth (the Gazette editorial team) set out to test the winning cocktails as promised.
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Barclays’ Libor fixing ‘voided’ swaps deals
Barclays’ manipulation of the London inter-bank offered rate (Libor) may have rendered tens of thousands of customer agreements that reference Libor ‘void’, according to a £12m claim against the bank. The case could open the way to claims for sums far exceeding direct losses incurred through Libor manipulation, admitted in ...
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Wheeldon should get the Buckles treatment
Just as respectable physicists once believed in the luminiferous ether, the mainstream commentariat has long been bewitched by the notion that public services are better and more efficiently run by organisations energised by the profit motive. A neoliberal article of faith for both main parties in recent years, it was ...
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MPs slam Cameron’s shared parenting plan
The chair of the commons Justice Select Committee has written to the prime minister expressing ‘great concern’ over plans to change the Children Act to promote shared parenting. In a robust letter Sir Alan Beith sets out the cross-party committee’s opposition to the government’s proposal ...
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No one cares and we will pay
As a property specialist, our firm is likely to be the one to thwart property fraud. I had not realised how little anyone else cared until I tried to report a property crime today. Through a vigilant estate agent, we found out that someone is pretending to be our client, ...
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Plans to rush cases through system are half-baked and dangerous
by Julian Young senior partner of central London firm Julian Young & Co and a solicitor-advocate We are seeing an increasing number of initiatives from ministers and civil servants to rush cases through the lower courts at breakneck speed.
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Local government: standards regime; disability payment challenge
So, farewell then, the Model Code of Conduct Order 2007. As 6 June saw the long-overdue birth of the (almost) final statutory measures to launch the new and battle-scarred standards regime, on 1 July the ancien standards régime was quietly euthanised - subject to the temporary reprieve of a few ...
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PII special: overview - sea change
Since moving to the open market in 2000, many solicitors’ firms have complained of professional indemnity insurance (PII) premium price hikes. As one anonymous lawyer put it: ‘Let’s not pretend that the insurers are some sort of benign force existing to help anyone. They are there to take premiums and ...
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Rise in NHS negligence claims expected
Claims against the NHS are likely to rise this year as cases are pushed through ahead of funding reforms, according to the new head of the NHS Litigation Authority.
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Lloyds deal opens way to Co-op expansion
The Co-operative Group could sell legal services from almost 1,000 bank branches, giving it an outlet on nearly every high street in the country following a deal to buy 632 Lloyds TSB and Cheltenham & Gloucester branches. The group announced this morning that it had agreed ...
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No costs savings
Since 19 March we have been required to send all CPR Part 7 designated money only claims to the County Court Money Claims Centre at the Salford Business Centre. The goal is to reduce costs and processing time.
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European court in judicial selection crisis
The crisis in Europe’s top court was set to escalate this week, with the 27 EU member states arguing over how to select 12 more judges to help handle a mounting caseload. The president of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which is ...
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Courtroom interpreter 'savings' evaporate
The Ministry of Justice has admitted that £12m of savings predicted for the first year of controversial new arrangements for courtroom interpreting ‘will probably not be achieved’. The announcement, by justice minister Lord McNally, came as the ministry declined to reveal the cost of the ...
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Dabbling in politics
Just what is going on with our leading firms? Last week the Guardian reported that the big cheeses of the accountancy world - KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young - were almost permanent fixtures in the corridors of power. Electoral Commission figures showed the firms had donated £1.9m in ...
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Disclosure
Confidential information - Intellectual property Phillips v Mulcaire: Supreme Court (Lords Hope DP, Walker, Kerr, Clarke and Dyson SCJJ): 4 July 2012 The Supreme Court dismissed the defendant's appeal in ...
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International regulation of unmanned military drones needed
Let’s hear it for the Methodists. I declare an interest. I am from non-conformist stock on both sides - dour, pledge-signing, earnest folk. No surprise to me and my kind that the established church spent its recent synod counting the number of women bishops that you can get on the ...
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EU
Commission - Decision - Applicant software company found to have abused dominant position in PC operating system market Microsoft Corporation v European Commission: General Court of the European Union (Second Chamber) (Judges Forwood (rapporteur) (president), Dehousse, Schwarcz): 27 June ...