Latest news – Page 629
-
News
PII outlook ‘positive’ as new entrant targets small firms
A new entrant has joined the solicitor professional indemnity insurance market with a strategy to target small firms. Specialist broker Prime Professions has launched a new product offering access to A-rated insurer Axis Specialty to sole practitioners or firms with up to three partners. The insurer ...
-
News
HSBC sets date for conveyancing panel
All firms that are members of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) will be put on HSBC’s conveyancing panel from 29 August, the Society and lender announced today. The move follows the deal agreed between the Society and HBSC in May, under which ...
-
News
QC to be charged with failing to pay £600,000 in VAT
A QC is to face charges over an alleged £600,000 VAT fraud, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today. Rohan Anthony Pershad QC, who practises from London’s Thirty Nine Essex Street, will face one charge of cheating the public revenue. CPS central ...
-
News
Panel identifies consumer trust shortfall
Legal services consumers are becoming less confident about protection of their rights as the market liberalises, research has found. The second consumer ‘healthcheck’ released by the Legal Services Consumer Panel today identified declining public trust in lawyers, though it pointed out that this is true of ...
-
News
Employment lawyers slam ‘out-of-the-blue’ reform plans
A group representing 6,000 employment lawyers has savaged government plans to cut red tape for businesses, claiming that they will prolong rather than settle disputes and stretch resources ‘beyond breaking point’. The Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) says that the proposals, in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform ...
-
News
Insurance fund deal for mesothelioma victims
Insurers will pay £300m over the next 10 years into a scheme to support newly diagnosed victims of mesothelioma, the government confirmed today. The money will go into a new fund for the 3,000 victims across the UK who are unable to claim compensation because ...
-
News
Supreme Court backs ‘unbeliever’ asylum right
The Supreme Court today unanimously upheld the right of asylum seekers not to be forced to hold, seem to hold or express a political opinion in order to protect themselves from persecution in their own countries. The judgment, for the first time, makes the law clear ...
-
News
‘New litigation industry’ will deter investors, CBI warns
Government proposals for ‘opt-out’ class actions for consumers could spark a new ‘litigation industry’ around competition law and deter inward investment and growth, business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry warned today. Businesses need incentives such as reduced fines to participate in alternative dispute ...
-
News
Medical report cost recovery in last-minute Jackson change
Concerns about impact on disabled claimants have forced a last-ditch change to the government’s civil litigation reforms. An equality impact assessment of the Jackson proposals revealed fears that claimants could be prevented from bringing a serious injury claim because of the cost of expert reports. Part ...
-
News
Shoosmiths lets 86 go
National firm Shoosmiths has responded to a difficult financial year by announcing a total of 86 redundancies. The top 40 firm, where turnover dropped by 3% in 2011/12 to £84m, today confirmed 71 voluntary and 15 compulsory redundancies following a two-month consultation. ...
-
News
Solicitor shot in Devizes has died
Police have confirmed that Wiltshire solicitor James Ward (pictured) has died following a shooting in his office earlier this month. The 58-year-old, principal solicitor at Morris Goddard & Ward, was shot at his desk in the firm’s Devizes office on 2 July. Wiltshire Police today confirmed ...
-
News
Solicitors demanding referral fees could be ‘named and shamed’ by bar
Naming and shaming solicitors who seek referral fees for passing work onto barristers has been mooted by the Bar Standards Board in a bid stamp out the practice. The Bar Council has already taken advice on whether referral fees amount to bribes, though that advice has ...
-
News
ABS offers barristers at £75 an hour
A new law firm which promises clients fixed fees and immediate face-to-face meetings with barristers has become the latest alternative business structure (ABS). Red Bar Law was formed in September last year and applied to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for ABS status in January. Today the ...
-
News
‘Common sense’ test proposed for prosecutions
Prosecution decisions would have to be tested for ‘proportionality’ under a proposed revised Code for Crown Prosecutors published by the director of public prosecutions yesterday. The revised, ‘more succinct’, code would supplement the existing public interest test with a question about whether the likely outcome ...
-
News
Society ‘dismayed’ at AML penalty stance
HM Treasury has decided to retain criminal penalties for breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations and not to exempt even the smallest firms from the administrative burden of compliance. The decisions, published last week in the Treasury’s response to a consultation that began in 2009, have ...
-
News
Deech hits back over bar tribunal ‘collapse’ claim
The chair of the Bar Standards Board (BSB) has defended the process for disciplining barristers following a claim that it is in a ‘state of collapse’ amid allegations of secrecy, maladministration and incompetence. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lady Deech said: ‘It is totally ...
-
News
Borders agency slammed for under-performance
Members of Parliament today criticised the UK Border Agency (UKBA) for failing to clear a 276,460 cases backlog - equivalent to the ‘entire population of Newcastle upon Tyne’. The backlog includes 150,000 individuals in the migration refusal pool and 3,900 foreign national prisoners who should have ...
-
News
No one cares and we will pay
As a property specialist, our firm is likely to be the one to thwart property fraud. I had not realised how little anyone else cared until I tried to report a property crime today. Through a vigilant estate agent, we found out that someone is pretending to be our client, ...
-
News
Over surcharged
The Gazettedrew attention to the increase in the extent of the ‘victim surcharge’ which is soon to be imposed on those who receive custodial sentences. It is unclear how the government proposes to extract payment from the impecunious defendant who receives a prison sentence. If it ...
-
News
Utter shambles
Who is in charge of the asylum? The Legal Services Commission’s Jarrow office now routinely mislays correspondence or fails to deal with it for weeks on end. Telephone calls take over 20 minutes to be answered. Even a complaint sent by recorded delivery is not acted ...