Last 3 months headlines – Page 1611
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Claims management market booms with 60% rise in number of firms
The number of businesses entering the claims management market has risen by 60% in the past year, new figures show, while the industry’s regulator said solicitors were responsible for malpractice in personal injury claims-handling. The Claims Management Regulator’s 2009 impact assessment revealed that 2,885 businesses were ...
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Legal Services Commission asks crime lawyers to join assessment pilot
The Legal Services Commission has called for more criminal lawyers to take part in its scheme to test different methods of assessing advocacy, after too few practitioners signed up. Piloting of the Quality Assurance for Advocates (QAA) scheme began in February at Crown courts in Birmingham, ...
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SOCA ignores call to give lawyers feedback on money laundering reports
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) intends to reject a recommendation that it should provide solicitors and other professionals with feedback when they make suspicious activity reports (SARs), the Gazette has learned. A House of Lords committee last week asked SOCA to provide ‘increased levels of ...
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Miners’ MP seeks probe into compensation payouts
The new chair of the All-Party Coalfield Communities Group has called on the government to investigate whether wide variations in compensation paid to injured miners may be explained at least in part by bad advice from solicitors.
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Solicitors hit by HSBC bank charges on client accounts
HSBC, the world’s biggest bank, has taken a ‘commercial decision’ to introduce extra charges for solicitors which could add thousands of pounds to law firms’ banking bills, the Gazette has learned. The new policy, which applies specifically to solicitors, comes despite the fact that most client ...
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Hypothesising the hypothetical director: an unpredictable opponent
Two interesting questions have emerged as relevant since the institution of part 11, chapter 1, sections 260-264 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 2006 act). They concern: (i) whether derivative claims will now have a better prospect of obtaining permission to continue; and (ii) how the courts will approach the ...
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Lord Justice Goldring to become senior presiding judge
Lord Justice Goldring has been appointed senior presiding judge for England and Wales. Currently deputy senior presiding judge, Lord Justice Goldring will take on his new role from 1 January 2010. He will succeed Lord Justice Leveson, whose three-year term of office ...
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LSC delays tendering for civil legal aid contracts
The Legal Services Commission has delayed tendering for civil legal aid contracts by six months. The delay means that family solicitors will have to wait longer for the new rules which will ensure they are paid the same as barristers for advocacy work. ...
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Huge fines await regulators under LSB proposals
The Legal Services Board could punish non-compliant regulators with multi-million-pound fines if its proposals on enforcement, released today, are accepted. From January 2010, the LSB would be able to fine the Law Society up to £28m for non-compliance if its proposals come into force in their ...
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New Law Commission chairman appointed
Justice secretary Jack Straw (pictured) appointed Family Division High Court judge Sir James Munby on Saturday as chairman of the Law Commission for three years, until August 2012. Straw said he was confident Munby would be a valuable asset to the Law Commission and further enhance ...
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Apple iPhone app makers need legal advice, says Law Society
The Law Society has urged UK inventors of Apple iPhone applications to secure their intellectual property rights by seeking advice from a solicitor. Apple iPhone applications or 'apps' can be worth tens of thousands of pounds in revenue, and anyone with the PC skills and a ...
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Legal aid providers offered free business and financial management training
The Legal Services Commission has announced a series of free training sessions in business and financial management skills for legal aid providers, which will begin in the areas where best-value tendering is to be piloted. The LSC’s ‘provider readiness’ team has commissioned accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers to create ...
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Does the new legal landscape level the playing field for legal execs?
by Diane Burleigh, chief executive of the Institute of Legal Executives More than 60 legal executives have been taken into partnership by their firms, ranging from large international practices to small niche high street and legal aid practices. This ability to appoint the best to the ...
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Practising certificate fee set to rise by 19%
The Law Society’s Council last week ‘reluctantly’ voted to increase the practising certificate (PC) fee by nearly a fifth. The 2010 fee will be £1,180, up from £995. The full contribution to the Compensation Fund will rise from £150 to £390. In ...
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Why are we behind Dubai on courts IT?
On the Gazette we’ve been here many times before, but that’s only because I feel duty-bound to keep pointing this out: we could have a really tidy electronic filing and document management (EFDM) system for our commercial courts (and beyond) for a fraction of the price that we appear to ...
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Regulation and free markets
In Europe, hardly a day goes by without news of further regulation of the financial services sector in the wake of the economic crisis.
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Should the CPS be renamed the Public Prosecution Service?
Last week Keir Starmer QC held a press briefing to announce the publication of a colourful little pamphlet designed to inform the public about the future of the service he leads.
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Halifax Legal Express and the fierce urgency of now
How difficult can it be to understand that the legal services market has changed? Radio 4's 'Chambers' broadcast its first episode this week and they are still referring to the legal changes to come in 2011/12. They are correct in that, at least, as alternative business structures will be sorted ...
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Inheritance Act: scrutiny of information to the Revenue
Section 247 of the Inheritance Act 1984 (IHTA) provides that anyone who fraudulently or negligently submits an incorrect account, information or document to the Inland Revenue shall be liable to a penalty.
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Employment
Equal pay – Independent experts – Job evaluation F A Hovell v Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital NHS Trust: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Mummery, Etherton, Elias): 9 July 2009 ...