Commentary and opinion – Page 196
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Opinion
A review of pre-packs is well overdue
Cadbury, Greenbury, Hampel, Turnbull, Higgs, Myners, Smith. No, this is not Blackpool’s backline from the 1953 cup final, but a list of grandees commissioned to review aspects of company law and corporate governance in the 1990s and early 2000s. Fading memories of attending their dessicated and often inconsequential press conferences ...
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OpinionGovernment bank sanction plans are flawed
The Treasury has accepted the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards
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OpinionLawyers need to think tactically on costs
A few months in to the new costs budgeting regime, many litigators have already had to knuckle down and complete Precedent H
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Opinion
Embracing compliance - like going to the gym
Much has been said and reported about the cost of regulatory compliance, but not so much about the benefits of compliance as a driver of quality and competitive advantage through creating better processes and controls. The SRA’s report Attitudes to regulation and compliance in legal services showed that the majority ...
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OpinionMesothelioma and Monopoly
There's a moment in most games of Monopoly when you have to make the choice. Your opponent needs your Pall Mall to complete their set, and they'll offer you a red, a green and a station in return. The deal looks too good to be true - what the hell ...
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OpinionChannel 4 is wrong to screen The Murder Trial
The strangest moment I ever faced while reporting a murder trial was some years ago in Braintree. The victim had been killed outside a nightclub and the DJ was giving evidence about the last time he saw the accused: dancing enthusiastically to ‘Oops Upside your Head’ (this really does constitute ...
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OpinionChannel 4 was right to screen The Murder Trial
Last night’s two-hour TV documentary about the Scottish trial of fruit and veg seller Nat Fraser for the murder of his wife Arlene offered a fascinating insight in the reality and banality of the courtroom. Despite the horrific and extraordinary nature of the offence, the programme, even with its sometimes ...
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Opinion
Lewisham Hospital prompts tribunal of the people
It is increasingly obvious that citizens worldwide are becoming disenchanted and disengaged with established government. This has been manifest in various forms of political and economic meltdown. Underpinning all the movements is a desire for accountability and transparency. Where this is not forthcoming ordinary people are finding ways of exercising ...
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Opinion
London legal pre-eminence is not set in stone
Honeyed words from Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, in-house head of legal at the multi-billion-pound international Hinduja Group. ‘There is a global respect for English law and London lawyers are the most experienced in the world,’ he told delegates at the Law Society’s International Marketplace Conference last week. Yet the global market is ...
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OpinionWhy the Magna Carta still has relevance today
What shall we be doing in the summer of 2015? A general election is scheduled for 7 May. If Theresa May gets her way, we shall be voting on whether to denounce a list of rights and liberties that will have been binding on our rulers for little more than ...
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Opinion
Helping out litigants in person
A report has been published by the Judicial Working Group on litigants in person. It explores possible judicial responses to the expected rise in litigants in person caused by the recent cuts to public funding for legal aid.
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OpinionTactics emerge in costs budgeting
Some interesting points emerged in relation to costs budgeting at IBC Legal’s Impact of Jackson conference last week. By now, many litigators will have had to knuckle down and complete Precedent H – the form through which they must provide the opposing party with an estimate of their costs in ...
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Opinion
Axa calls for three-day limit on whiplash claims
Whiplash claims should be made within three days of the alleged accident and include evidence of physical injury if they are to succeed, insurance giant Axa said today. The recommendations are part of a wishlist for the government to adopt on whiplash, copying models already in place in France and ...
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OpinionDefendant firms are turkeys protecting Christmas
This may surprise you, but not all my correspondence is adoring fanmail. Indeed, on some occasions people tell me rather forcefully that I’m wrong, and often in the kind of language that gives our email filter system nightmares. The majority of angry responses come from defendant firms who take issue ...
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OpinionCounting the cost of interventions
The cost of law firm failures is being felt across the solicitors’ profession. The Gazette reported recently that the unprecedented bill for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervening in failing firms means that we will all have to pay an extra £23 each towards the compensation fund in the coming ...
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Opinion
Open justice? Open court listings would be a start
A century ago, in Scott v Scott (1913), the House of Lords affirmed the common law rule that courts must administer justice in public. Just last week, Lord Justice Kay cited the ruling when rejecting a request by a Saudi prince for litigation to be heard in private. He ruled: ...
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Opinion
Using Google Analytics
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OpinionThe jury’s out on the European Public Prosecutor
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the case of United Kingdom vs the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.