Last 3 months headlines – Page 1718
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France unveils Clementi-style review
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has set in motion a Clementi-style review of the country’s legal profession so that French practices can compete with their Anglo-Saxon rivals. In a letter to Jean-Michel Darrois, who is heading the review, Sarkozy said it was necessary to give French firms ...
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MDPs lure 75% of counsel
The vast majority of corporate general counsel will purchase legal services from non-specialist firms once the Legal Services Act reforms are in place, a new study has revealed. Three-quarters of respondents to a survey by business advisory firm KPMG – seen exclusively by the Gazette this ...
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US legislators resist libel laws
‘UK should not impose free-speech standards on rest of world’ Washington will make moves to prevent the enforcement of English libel judgments against American authors unless UK defamation laws are brought into line with those of the US, a New York State legislator warned this week. ...
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Indemnity insurer to abandon PII market
Novae, one of the qualifying lawyers’ professional indemnity insurers (PII), is to pull out of the market completely, the Gazette has learned. According to sources, the insurer, which writes around £2m of PII, will shortly become the second company to withdraw cover from the market ahead ...
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SFO in drugs appeal
The Serious Fraud Office’s reputation for legal competence is under scrutiny following the latest setback to a high-profile prosecution. A Crown Court judge last week refused to let the office amend an indictment on criminal offences relating to contested allegations of anti-competitive behaviour over the ...
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Compensation blow for justice victims
Many victims of miscarriages of justice are now in the ‘appalling situation’ of having no recourse to compensation following a Court of Appeal ruling last week, lawyers have claimed. The court refused to reinstate the discretionary compensation scheme that the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke abolished ...
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CPS trial plans slammed
New measures allowing non-legal Crown Prosecution Service staff to conduct trials at magistrates’ courts were this week condemned as dumbing down the service by a leading criminal defence practitioner. Section 55 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which came into force this week, allows ...
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Report calls for data transparency
A fast-track procedure for removing barriers to the sharing of personal data between organisations is among legal reforms urged in a wide-ranging review on data protection commissioned by the Prime Minister. The review, by Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and Dr Mark Walport, director of the ...
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Tax tribunal case hike
A sharp rise in the number of cases put before the two HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) tax tribunals may be a result of applicants pushing appeals through before the tribunals merge, a leading tax lawyer has said. Applications to the VAT and Duties Tribunal and ...
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Practice Q&A: Keeping it clean
Can I delay accounting for and paying VAT to HM Revenue & Customs on clients’ bills until I have received payment from the client? No. The effect of HM Revenue & Customs Notice 700 is to make unlawful and ineffective the practice of a solicitor writing ...
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Lack of capacity and beneficiary liability
Baker v Baker [2008] WTLR 565 illustrates an increasing tendency for probate cases to involve a number of different claims. While terminally ill in hospital with liver disease, Mr Baker executed a will prepared by his brother, Richard. ...
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Human rights
Asylum seekers - Delay - Immigration policy - Leave to remain - Proportionality EB (Kosovo) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2008): HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Scott of Foscote, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood): 25 ...
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Constitutional law
Governments – Implied promises – Legitimate expectation – Parliamentary privilege – Referendums R (on the application of Wheeler) (claimant) v (1) Office of the Prime Minister (2) Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (defendants) & Speaker of the House of Commons (interested party) ...
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Personal injury
Negligence – Damages – Criminal conduct - Ex turpi causa - Post-traumatic stress disorder Kerrie Francis Gray v (1) Thames Trains Ltd (2) Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd (formerly Railtrack Plc) (2008): CA (Civ Div) (Sir Anthony Clarke Master of the Rolls, Lords Justice Tuckey, Smith): ...
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Intellectual property
Criminal law – Media and entertainment – Circumvention of copy protection – Computer games – Copyright R v Neil Stanley Higgs (2008): CA (Crim Div) (Lords Justice Jacob, Hughes, Justice Andrew Smith): 24 June 2008 The appellant (H) appealed against ...
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Landlord and tenant
Local government – Mental health – Possession claims – Public sector tenancies – Schizophrenia Lewisham London Borough Council v Malcolm (2008): HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Scott of Foscote, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury): 25 June 2008 ...
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Grandee of the law wades in
Lord Woolf has witnessed ‘the transformation of almost every aspect of the legal scene’ For many people, the name Lord Woolf will always be synonymous with the revolutionary reform of the civil court code in the late 1990s: the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). ...
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Long road from the LSA
Leading figures from the profession recently debated the likely shape of a post-Legal Services Act world. The Gazette was granted exclusive access. It is some consolation for the legal profession that Professor Richard Susskind, the leading commentator, has put a question mark at the end ...
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In-house beautiful
Almost a quarter of practitioners now work in-house, and very few of them appear to have any intention of returning to private practice. As the old days of aiming for partner and owning a stake in a law firm slowly pass away in favour of ...
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In defence of the victims
Matthew Hickling’s criticism of the Criminal Procedure Rules does not stand up to scrutiny I write as one who prosecutes daily in the magistrates’ court.