Last 3 months headlines – Page 1680
-
News
Blow for third-party funding
A leading Australian litigation funder has pulled out of its European joint venture less than six months after it set up, the Gazette can reveal. In a blow to the nascent third-party funding market, IMF has withdrawn from Claims Funding International (CFI), which it formally launched ...
-
News
Courting the regions
Claimants will no longer be forced to come to London to have administrative cases heard, under plans to improve access to justice due to be announced by the Ministry of Justice. The Gazette has learned that four regional centres of the Administrative Court are to open ...
-
News
Child care cost case fails
Councils have failed in their attempt to challenge increases in court fees for child care and placement applications. High Court judges last week dismissed a claim brought by four local authorities that the policy of ‘full cost recovery’ in family proceedings was unlawfully introduced. Since ...
-
News
Legal aid burden
Job cuts at the Legal Services Commission (LSC) could increase administrative burdens on legal aid solicitors, practitioner groups have warned. The LSC announced last week it is to shed 600 posts, reducing its workforce to 1,100, and close seven of its 13 offices. ‘More efficient processes ...
-
News
KBF back in business soon?
Troubled legal lender Key Business Finance (KBF) could be back in business within weeks – but money already paid to KBF would remain in the hands of its administrators. Gazette sources said KBF’s management team is looking to buy ...
-
News
'Right to reject' goods at risk
Plans for a new European directive on consumer rights would place UK consumers in a weaker position, the Law Commission has warned. Commissioners said the Consumer Rights Directive could lead to the abolition of the ‘right to reject’ faulty goods for a refund within a reasonable ...
-
News
New assault on third-party capture
Solicitors are joining forces to attack the practice of insurance companies ‘capturing’ personal injury clients. The move reflects continuing concern that some insurance companies are pressurising claimants into instructing companies’ panel solicitors, rather than their independent solicitor, and to accept reduced compensation.
-
News
Fee-cap 'outrage'
Practitioners have condemned as ‘outrageous’ government proposals to cap payments for acquitted defendants’ legal costs that would leave innocent people out of pocket. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last week published a consultation on reform to the system of reimbursing the legal costs of people acquitted ...
-
News
Pro bono lesson
Attorney General Baroness Scotland launched the seventh national pro bono week with a mock trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, led by the National Centre for Citizenship & the Law. BPP Law School students debated knife and gun crime with a jury of young people from the Behaviour Support ...
-
News
'Fragmentation' fears over regulation review
A review of solicitor regulation must not be allowed to fragment the profession, sole practitioners have warned. Hamish McNair, chairman of the Sole Practitioners Group (SPG), said: ‘Sole practitioners and solicitors at magic circle firms may have very different clients, but it is important to ...
-
News
HMRC warned over barristers
HM Revenue & Customs prosecutors have relied too heavily on too small a pool of barristers to fight cases, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts said this week. According to its report on the Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office (RCPO), one set of chambers, ...
-
News
Mixed half-year results picture
Big UK firms have endured mixed fortunes so far this year, with the half-year revenue estimates released so far showing large variations in growth. At the top end of growth, City firm Trowers & Hamlins estimated fee income up 16% to £42m for the first half ...
-
News
Flying tonight
Crispy duck ovens are not all they are quacked up to be. Westminster City council, precipitating a crisis that threatened to banish the dish from eateries across Chinatown, had condemned the ovens for failing to meet European carbon monoxide emission standards.
-
News
Mixed half-year results picture
Big UK firms have endured mixed fortunes so far this year, with the half-year revenue estimates released so far showing large variations in growth. At the top end of growth, City firm Trowers & Hamlins estimated fee income up 16% to £42m for the first half ...
-
News
Local government: a new code of conduct
Pity the poor Local Authorities (Model Code of Conduct Order) 2007 – the 18-month-old toddler, currently scampering innocently around local and police authority floors, has been given a proposed sentence of death by the government.
-
News
Constitutional law
Abuse of power – Changos Islands – Colonial legislation – Legitimate expectation – Prerogative powers R (on the application of Louis Olivier Bancoult) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: HL (Lord Hoffmann, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, ...
-
News
Human rights
Immigration – Human rights – Asylum seekers – Children – Removal EM (Lebanon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: HL (Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Carswell, Lord Brown ...
-
News
Martyn Day: fierce advocate for the people
One could never criticise Martyn Day for lacking the willingness to have a go. ‘I’m absolutely determined to find the right case,’ says the senior partner of claimant firm Leigh Day & Co, when asked if he would be prepared to have another crack at suing tobacco companies on behalf ...
-
News
Beyond price
I’m delighted to report that the Law Society’s Excellence Awards were a tremendous success. Old Billingsgate, overlooking the Thames, made for a spectacular venue and Kirsty Wark from BBC2’s Newsnight was a great host. This year saw a record number of entries, and the awards are now widely considered to ...