All articles by Michael Cross – Page 112
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UK dismisses European common sales law plan
The government has poured cold water on European Commission proposals for an optional common European sales law. In a response to a call for evidence published today, it describes the commission’s plan as ‘an unbalanced proposal which is overly complex, introduces confusion and legal uncertainty ...
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Pilot officer Isaac’s short second world war
Memorial plaques at Golders Green Crematorium, north London, bear lots of memorable names; Anna Pavlova, Marc Bolan, Sid James. But, hanging around after a funeral a few years back, a memorable date caught my eye. It was 3 September 1939, on a Commonwealth War Graves tablet commemorating the falling of ...
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Goldring warns expert witnesses on fee ‘padding’
Expert witnesses will face fixed fees if they are found to be ‘padding out’ their charges to compensate for new hourly rates, the senior presiding judge of England and Wales warned the largest regular conference of experts today. Lord Justice Goldring told attendees at the ...
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Chancery Lane hits out at LETR over claim
The Law Society has hit back at claims that the current system of legal education and training is unfit for purpose. In a critical response to a discussion paper published by the cross-professional Legal Education and Training Review (LETR), the Society says it is ‘not aware of clear evidence that ...
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Digital by default
For some reason it failed to top the world’s news agenda, but yesterday the government announced a revolution in the way it interacts with citizens and businesses. The Cabinet Office published a strategy for Whitehall to go ‘digital by default’, meaning that Amazon-style online transactions will finally replace paper forms, ...
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Mediators go for ‘gold’ in Hong Kong
Demand for mediation services in Hong Kong – which adopted Woolf-style obligatory mediation in 2010 – has prompted the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) to create a panel of 22 mediators in the region. Mark Side, partner and head of dispute resolution at Tanner ...
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Disappointment at costs council decision
Costs lawyers have expressed disappointment at the government’s decision not to create a costs council as recommended in Lord Justice Jackson’s civil justice reforms. On Monday this week, the Ministry of Justice announced in a written statement that the work of the disbanded Advisory Committee on ...
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ABSs still a minority interest in flat market, says PwC survey
Alternative business structure status remains of interest only to a minority of big firms as a way of building business, according to a long-established annual snapshot. In the Law Firms Survey 2012, compiled by consultancy PwC, 11% of top-100 firms see ABS status as one of ...
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Call for clients to have a say on fitness to practise
Continuing to practise as a lawyer will depend on regular positive reviews from clients and colleagues if the Legal Services Consumer Panel has its way. In its latest submission to the Legal Education and Training Review, set up by the three main regulators, the consumer champion calls on the review ...
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Green light for deferred prosecution agreements
The government today announced plans to legislate to create US-style deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) for corporate crime. Publishing a government response to a Ministry of Justice consultation held last summer the justice minister, Damian Green (pictured), said DPAs 'will give prosecutors an effective new tool to tackle what has become ...
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Cut oral hearings, says Slaughter and May’s Boardman
An influential magic circle partner today makes a public call for a reduction in oral hearings to reform a legal system which he says has returned to the ‘dark days’ described in Dickens’ Bleak House. Nigel Boardman, partner at Slaughter and May, says lawyers should ...
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War tribunal ‘politically motivated’
A barrister representing a prominent Muslim figure in Britain has criticised a tribunal seeking his extradition to Bangladesh on war crimes charges.
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Hudson warning over failure to modernise conveyancing
Failure to computerise the conveyancing process could damage the UK economy, the chief executive of the Law Society has told a United Nations conference. Speaking at a UN Economic Commission for Europe event on the role of land registration in economic recovery, Desmond Hudson (pictured) ...
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May to announce opt-out of EU justice measures
The home secretary Theresa May will confirm today that government plans to exercise its right to opt out of 130 EU cross-border measures on law and order. She is expected to tell MPs that under an opt-out agreed by the last government when negotiating the ...
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News
Flexible courts: evidence, please
Are flexible and virtual courts a good idea? No one yet has a clue. Not the ministers who in the white paper Swift and Sure Justice moaned about ‘a cultural tolerance of delay’, nor lawyers who fear the consequences for their businesses. What we do ...
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Solicitors cool on Conservatives' employee share scheme
Chancellor George Osborne’s plan for employees to exchange legal rights for tax-free shares in their workplaces has received a cool reception from employment lawyers. In his speech to the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, Osborne said that under the ‘voluntary three-way deal’ employees would ‘replace ...
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Online legal comparison pioneer to unveil site revamp
Legal services comparison site Wigster is planning a high-profile relaunch following the appointment last week of entrepreneur Matthew Briggs (pictured) as a director. Briggs, who is chief executive of the online claims management business Claims.com, was previously the non-lawyer chief executive of personal injury firm ...
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Direct Line hints at legal services plan
Insurance giant Direct Line has confirmed that it is considering setting up a legal services arm when it is spun off from current owner Royal Bank of Scotland. The revelation appears in a prospectus for a share flotation in the group, due to get under ...
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Kurds fight ‘flood’ of English solicitors
Lawyers in the oil-rich Kurdistan region of Iraq are threatening court action against English solicitors who they accuse of practising in the country without a licence. ‘Our members, 9,000 lawyers, have asked us to stop the flood of foreign lawyers,’ Wrya Saadi Ahmed (pictured), president of the Kurdish Bar Association, ...
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Iraq executions heighten justice fears
A spate of executions in Iraq has raised new fears about the conduct of justice in the strife-torn country. The country’s justice ministry has announced nearly 100 hangings so far in 2012, including 26 in two days in August alone. According to campaigners Human Rights Watch, all the executed were ...