All articles by James Dean – Page 15
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News
Lobbying firms under pressure to sign EU register of interests
Law firms that lobby EU institutions will face pressure to sign a register of interests after senior EU officials vowed to forge ahead with plans to boost transparency, the Gazette has learned. At a meeting in Brussels last Thursday, a working group of European commissioners and ...
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News
Technical problems continue to dog RTA claims portal
Technical problems are continuing to hamper the new road traffic accident (RTA) information exchange, set up to handle hundreds of thousands of low-value RTA claims. Solicitors told the Gazette this week that some have still not received access codes for the new RTA claims portal despite ...
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News
PI lawyers asked to report ‘foul play’ by insurers
Personal injury lawyers are being asked to provide evidence of alleged foul play by insurance companies that settle motor accident claims directly with victims. The Motor Accident Solicitors Society (MASS) and Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) have asked members to pass on evidence of alleged ...
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News
Quinn administrators recommend closure of PII arm
The administrators of Quinn Insurance have recommended that the Irish insurer’s professional indemnity insurance (PII) business in the UK should close for good, the Gazette has learned. Administrators Grant Thornton told the Gazette that in their proposals to the Irish Financial Regulator, which regulates Quinn, they ...
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News
Indian LPO Pangea3 opens in UK in European expansion drive
Indian legal process outsourcing (LPO) provider Pangea3 has opened an office in London as part of a concerted expansion drive in Europe. Brian Allan, vice-president of legal services in Europe, will head the office on London’s South Bank. He said the decision was taken because the ...
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News
Solicitor and firm fined £400,000 for aiding share scam
The senior partner at London firm Atlantic Law has been banned by the City watchdog from working in financial services and along with his firm, fined £400,000 in total for ‘recklessly’ signing off adverts issued by Spanish fraudsters.
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News
Public fails to chart financial assets in wills
Nearly three-quarters of the British public do not have a will that clearly charts their financial assets, research has revealed. Some 73% of Britons have not documented financial assets such as pension plans and life insurance policies in their wills, a YouGov survey of 2,384 adults, ...
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News
RTA portal launch runs into trouble
The new road traffic accident (RTA) information exchange, which is designed to handle hundreds of thousands of low-value RTA claims, has been dogged by problems since its belated introduction last week, the Gazette has learned. Many solicitors have still not received access codes for the new ...
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News
Partner promotions up at top City firms
Top City law firms have upped their partner promotions this year, in what appears to be a good round for City lawyers. As the Gazette went to press, only two City firms outside the magic circle, Norton Rose and Denton Wilde Sapte, and two within ...
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News
Law Society seeks to block privilege for non-lawyers
The Law Society has been granted permission to intervene in a Court of Appeal case that could see legal professional privilege (LPP) extended to non-lawyers. In his High Court judgment in Prudential v Special Commissioner of Income Tax and Philip Pandolfo (HM Inspector of Taxes) in ...
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News
Quinn Group considers selling insurance arm
Quinn Insurance, the Irish insurer currently in administration, looks destined to be sold following a statement from its parent company Quinn Group issued last week. Quinn Group said it had concluded that it ‘should consider selling Quinn Insurance’ in the interests of Quinn Insurance employees and ...
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News
APIL urges government to increase access to compensation
The next government must provide injured workers with enhanced access to compensation, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) said as a government consultation, Accessing Compensation, closed today. APIL urged the incoming government to ensure that plans laid down by the Department for Work and Pensions ...
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News
FTSE-100 group attacks ECJ ruling on Akzo Nobel appeal
The group that represents in-house counsel at FTSE 100 companies has attacked a preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on legal privilege rights for in-house lawyers as illogical and ‘flawed’. The GC100 said it was ‘very disappointed’ by advocate general Juliane Kokott’s opinion ...
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News
Quinn Group to ‘consider selling’ its insurance business
Quinn Insurance, the Irish insurer currently in administration, looks destined to be sold following a statement from its parent company Quinn Group issued today. Quinn Group said it had concluded that it ‘should consider selling Quinn Insurance’ in the interests of Quinn Insurance employees and ...
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News
Big brands will ‘drive small personal injury firms out’
Small ‘pure play’ personal injury law firms will become extinct once ‘big brands’ can offer legal services, Richard Langton, partner at national firm Russell Jones & Walker, told the conference. Langton predicted that personal injury firms with fewer than 30 fee-earners will be driven out of ...
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News
Third-party capture is ‘legitimate’ , says Association of British Insurers
Third-party capture is ‘legitimate’ and ‘in everyone’s interests’, Nick Starling, director of general insurance and health at the Association of British Insurers, told delegates at last week’s conference. In a number of heated exchanges, Starling was grilled over the practice of third-party capture – also known ...
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News
Rising cost of PI claims against the NHS ‘cannot continue’
The escalating cost of personal injury claims against the NHS ‘simply cannot continue’ and lawyers must advise the government on a remedy, the incoming president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) said last week. Muiris Lyons (pictured), partner and head of clinical negligence at ...
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News
Advocate general advises against privilege for in-house lawyers
In-house lawyers in Europe should not have the same right to legal professional privilege as other lawyers, the advocate general in the long-running Akzo Nobel case said this morning. Giving her opinion on the case, which precedes the final decision of the European Court of Justice ...
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Profile
Interview: John Davidson, legal chief at SABMiller and GC100 chair
Some indicators suggest things are getting better for business. In the UK, one of the casualties of the recession, now Lloyds Banking Group, announced in March that it expects to turn a profit this year; while fellow casualty Royal Bank of Scotland last week received a ratings upgrade from stockbroker ...
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News
Coming after Goldman Sachs – and lawyers perhaps?
It looks as though the US’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) are hunting down those they believe to be the architects of the financial crisis. This week, the SEC filed a fraud suit against Goldman Sachs, the recession-defying Wall Street investment bank.