Last 3 months headlines – Page 1675
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Domestic violence victims get banking help
Victims of domestic abuse can now bypass banks’ money laundering regulations under new measures to help them gain financial independence from their abusers. The Home Office and the British Bankers Association said last week that victims would be allowed to open accounts with only a ...
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Tax specialists dismiss MP's clampdown motion
City tax lawyers have dismissed as unworkable a parliamentary motion urging the government to clamp down on firms that design tax avoidance schemes. Thirty-two MPs have so far signed an early day motion urging the government to ‘investigate and regulate’ the activities of banks, law firms ...
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Sharia finance joins global economic downturn
Hopes that Islamic finance would escape the economic downturn are unfounded, early figures suggest. After six years of growth, the value of sukuk bonds issued fell from $42bn (£28bn) in 2007 to $20bn (£13.4bn) in 2008, according to a new survey. The Islamic Finance 2009 ...
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Mining investments and transport negotiations
China investment: Magic circle firm Clifford Chance, alongside Australian firm Mallesons, advised Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco) on its $19.5bn (£13.4bn) investment in the Rio Tinto mining group. The transaction involved the issue of convertible bonds to Chinalco, which will increase Chinalco's shareholding ...
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Baby P case sparks hike in care applications
Fears that vulnerable children would be put at risk because of the soaring cost of family care proceedings appear to have proved unfounded, new figures suggest. Fees for public law childcare applications rose from £150 to £4,825 last May, as part of a government drive ...
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Three solicitors appointed Queen’s Counsel
Three out of four solicitor applicants for Queen’s Counsel (QC) were successful in the latest appointment round, it was announced today (19 February). And women continue to outperform men overall, with 55% of all female applicants successful in 2008/09 compared to 40% of men. ...
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Axe falls at A&O
Magic circle firm Allen & Overy is to cut up to 82 partners and up to 200 lawyers and freeze pay for all employees as part of a wide-ranging, £44m restructuring programme. In total more than 240 A&O jobs in London could go.
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Repossession claims fall in wake of new protocol
The number of new mortgage repossession claims issued in the courts is down by 50% since the credit crunch-inspired introduction of a civil procedure affecting lenders and borrowers. The mortgage pre-action protocol (MPAP), approved by the Master of the Rolls, was introduced for possession claims in ...
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Thinktank calls for overhaul of City firm regulation
A legal policy thinktank has today (23 February) called for an urgent shake-up of the regulation of City law firms. Trying to regulate the high-street practitioner and global firms under one regime produces ‘unhappy compromises’, argues the College of Law’s Legal Services Policy Institute. The institute ...
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Local government law – ASBOs, injunctions and anti-social behaviour
Birmingham City Council has had a setback in its use of injunctions to curb serious gang-driven criminal and anti-social behaviour.
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PPI claims become a revenue stream for law firms
In the last 12 months, the payment protection insurance (PPI) claims sector has exploded as customers increasingly become ‘clued up’ about their consumer rights.
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Scent of a woman
Last month Obiter reported Berkshire solicitor Hilary Messer’s recollection of misunderstanding a female judge’s enquiry about the perfume she was wearing. Roberta Tish, a consultant with London firm Blacklaws Davis, reckons Messer was lucky. ‘How times have changed,’ Tish writes. ‘In the very early sixties, I was appearing before ...
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Breaking the law
They are supposed to uphold and administer the law, but when it comes to motoring, the legal profession shows delinquent tendencies. Lawyers, judges and magistrates are 60% more likely than the average motorist to have points on their licence, according to research by insurer ...
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World games
When we cheerfully predicted that new technology would cause the demise of the legal typo, we forgot about a new peril: the predictive text software that’s supposed to make life easier for people sending text messages or emails on the fly. Unless you’re careful, messages thus generated can range ...
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Pinsent Masons
Thanks to our friends at Pinsent Masons for sending us a preview of the firm’s stylish new Manchester premises in the city’s Spinningfields development. Apparently the property fit-out specialist Overbury has started work on the décor, ready for a June move-in. The aim is ‘a visually striking, welcoming and user-friendly ...
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Female decoration
We welcome two new members to the club of long-serving legal stalwarts: secretaries at Suffolk firm Greene & Greene who have clocked up a combined total of 84 years’ service. Lorraine Palfrey joined the firm in October 1966 as an office junior, being promoted ...
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Lord Bingham monitors the Binyam Mohamed controversy
David Miliband won something of a hollow victory over the media last week. The foreign secretary persuaded two judges not to publish ‘seven very short paragraphs’ they had withheld from a judgment last August. These 25 lines summarised reports to British security and intelligence officials by ...
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Conveyancing crisis: a reflection of the times
I am writing as chair of the Direct Conveyancing Association, which represents some of the largest direct conveyancers in the UK, to respond to comments made by Law Society President Paul Marsh (see [2009] Gazette, 29 January, p1).
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Delivering the post on time
Practising solicitors are proving slow to grasp the business development opportunities offered by the internet, as this column somewhat didactically observed last month. The findings of this year’s Law Society Software Solutions Guide (see In Business) confirm what we know.
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Cost fears that may put solicitors off ID cards
The Home Office wants lawyers to be ‘early adopters’ of ID equipment. According to minister Meg Hillier, ‘for legal transactions it might well be worthwhile [solicitors] having a reading machine to quickly verify ID’ (see [2009] Gazette, 5 February, 4). There are many civil liberty arguments against the scheme. But ...