All articles by Eduardo Reyes – Page 32
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News
All doomed?
Monday’s news that midlands firm Blakemores, with a headcount of 250-plus, is the subject of an SRA intervention – effectively confirming that the SRA believes that the firm’s finances mean it cannot safely continue to trade – may leave principals of smaller traditionally run firms, who are staring at diminishing ...
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Harassment, sexism and progression
In the past week the Liberal Democrats, for whom I once worked, have started to investigate and confront the way that complaints of sexual harassment by party figures were dealt with in the past – announcing two independent inquiries, one QC-led, and co-operating with the Metropolitan police. ...
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Personal devices are weakest security link
The largest international law firms are among the UK practices that have a poor grip on the security of their data, according to research conducted among 200 firms. The widespread use of personal devices is the weak link in security, with an overwhelming majority of professionals ...
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New order at Barclays
In the world of banking and financial services, 1999 was another age. Back in the day, as bankers and regulators grizzled with age may one day recall, international finance was able to weather storms such as the Asian financial crisis, a fall in confidence in Russian investments, and a burst ...
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The Eastleigh by-election could be improved by lawyers
Where are the lawyers of Eastleigh? Or more specifically, as Chris Huhne’s former constituency, site of a coming by-election, has 50 law firms within 4.5 miles of the town centre, why is no candidate in this election paying much attention to legal issues or the law? ...
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What Mid Staffs and RBS have in common
Banks and the health service were both in the news this morning – a £400m fine for state-owned RBS for Libor-fixing; and a damning report on failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust where, in addition to multiple failings, patient deaths were hundreds above what one would expect for the hospital’s ...
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Barclays hunts for new GC as legal in-tray mounts
Barclays’ general counsel Mark Harding is to retire after a decade in the post, the bank announced. Group finance director Chris Lucas is also stepping down, though both senior executives will remain until successors are found. Commenting on the departures, ...
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Disclosure ruling rocks banks
Banks are struggling to control their liabilities following a Financial Services Authority finding that 90% of interest rate swaps (IRS) products banks sold to SMEs were in breach of regulatory requirements, and a judge’s ruling rejecting 24 Barclays employees’ demands for anonymity. Stephen Rosen, head ...
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Ask the staff
The annual civil service people survey is a great annual diversion, juxtaposing low levels of staff satisfaction and confidence in the Ministry of Justice’s leadership on the one hand, and hyper-positive confidence of senior management spin on the other. This year my colleague Catherine Baksi reported it as news - ...
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China arbitration fight rocks foreign firms
Fears are growing that arbitration decisions made in two of China’s economic powerhouses may be impossible to enforce as a result of a feud between rival arbitration centres. The dispute began with the release of new arbitration rules by the Beijing-based China International Economic and ...
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Let it snow
How well did your firm or department cope with the snow? (Or how well are you coping? I realise it’s still very much there for some of you.) That’s not just a polite enquiry – though of course I do care – but I actually think ...
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Roundtable: market makers
A difficult economy combined with far-reaching changes in legal regulation has given the UK’s dominant legal market, England and Wales, the feel of a dramatic landscape heading into 2013. Commentators have taken to reaching for an impressive range of cliches and metaphors – from ‘perfect storm’ to ‘brave new world’, ...
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News
Does competition law suit the NHS?
Competition law seems especially vulnerable to ‘the law of unintended consequences’ in the current environment. This can be seen in operation, some argue, by the 8 January referral by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) of a proposed merger between two NHS trusts (located in Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch) to ...
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What connects us: can the answer be human rights?
A rising tide of prosperity that floats all boats is no longer the glue that can hold our society together. Whatever the consensus was in the boom years around the greater good that could be derived from economic growth driven by personal atavism, to make the same argument at the ...
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Bill of rights commission splits
The prime minister’s plans for a ‘British bill of rights’ are in tatters today as the commission he formed to tackle the issue publishes its final report with two commission members dissenting from its contents. Lady Kennedy (Helena Kennedy QC) and Philippe Sands QC have written a dissenting argument. Speaking ...
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Can accountants change the legal sector?
The re-entry of the global accounting firms into the legal sector is one of the more eye-catching predictions in professor Richard Susskind’s latest book, published today, ‘Tomorrow’s Lawyers: an introduction to your future’.
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Dishonesty in debates on tax law
Despite Starbucks’ announcement that it intends to start paying corporation tax in the UK, I’m finding the current debate on tax law frustrating. There is a lack of honesty on all sides. The debate as presented at the moment is a triangle. In one corner, ...
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UKBA warns lawyers over ‘queue-jumping’
Immigration lawyers who help clients queue-jump an appointments system for work permits risk sanctions that could end their practice, the UK Border Agency has warned. In what is known as ‘a 3am appointment’, immigration advisers, including solicitors, use fictitious client names to book appointments online ...