All News articles – Page 1366
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News
Local government: standards regime; disability payment challenge
So, farewell then, the Model Code of Conduct Order 2007. As 6 June saw the long-overdue birth of the (almost) final statutory measures to launch the new and battle-scarred standards regime, on 1 July the ancien standards régime was quietly euthanised - subject to the temporary reprieve of a few ...
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Plans to rush cases through system are half-baked and dangerous
by Julian Young senior partner of central London firm Julian Young & Co and a solicitor-advocate We are seeing an increasing number of initiatives from ministers and civil servants to rush cases through the lower courts at breakneck speed.
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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, ...
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MPs slam Cameron’s shared parenting plan
The chair of the commons Justice Select Committee has written to the prime minister expressing ‘great concern’ over plans to change the Children Act to promote shared parenting. In a robust letter Sir Alan Beith sets out the cross-party committee’s opposition to the government’s proposal ...
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Wheeldon should get the Buckles treatment
Just as respectable physicists once believed in the luminiferous ether, the mainstream commentariat has long been bewitched by the notion that public services are better and more efficiently run by organisations energised by the profit motive. A neoliberal article of faith for both main parties in recent years, it was ...
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Barclays’ Libor fixing ‘voided’ swaps deals
Barclays’ manipulation of the London inter-bank offered rate (Libor) may have rendered tens of thousands of customer agreements that reference Libor ‘void’, according to a £12m claim against the bank. The case could open the way to claims for sums far exceeding direct losses incurred through Libor manipulation, admitted in ...
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Mine's a Baileys
Still humbled by the phenomenal response to the legal cocktail competition, Obiter’s representatives on earth (the Gazette editorial team) set out to test the winning cocktails as promised.
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‘Bill of Rights’ consultation shows how bad laws get made
For anyone curious to see the process of rubbish ideas being turned into statutes that operate sub-optimally, I recommend reading the second consultation of the ‘Commission on a Bill of Rights’. This is not to say that Sir Hugh Lewis, the commission’s chair, is ...
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Turn to arbitration and slash costs, town halls told
Local authorities could save 95% of the typical cost of taking cases to court by turning to specialist arbitration, according to a not-for-profit organisation providing such services. The London-based Centre for Justice said public bodies are losing up to 10% of their budgets annually in ...
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Appeal to test article eight right over private property
Squatters occupying the likely site of Heathrow’s proposed third runway were yesterday given a six-week stay of eviction to appeal under article eight of the Human Rights Act, the right to home and family life. The site is privately owned and this will be the first ...
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Sixth annual bar placement scheme
The Bar Council hosted its sixth annual bar placement scheme last week, in conjunction with the Social Mobility Foundation. The scheme encourages talented children to aim for the bar regardless of their social or economic background.
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MPs to probe interpreter deal
A high-profile parliamentary committee has launched an inquiry into the controversial deal between the Ministry of Justice and the private company contracted to provide court interpreters. The Justice Select Committee today launched a call for written evidence to examine the service provided by Applied Language Solutions ...
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Legal framework for immigration ‘collapses’
The legal framework for UK immigration policy is in disarray following today’s Supreme Court ruling that UK Border Agency (UKBA) policies on corporate immigration are unlawful. The court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that much of the UKBA’s practice and policies for corporate immigration are unlawful ...
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Why can’t lawyers get costs information right?
It’s over 20 years since the first guidance about costs - the Written Professional Standards - appeared, followed closely by Rule 15 and the Solicitors’ Costs Information and Client Care Code, yet complaints about costs, and the related information provided to clients, remain one of the highest causes for complaint.
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Let Rome burn - we’re off on holiday!
That noise you can hear is MPs stampeding for the exits. Yes, today is the first day of their summer recess/holiday, just 36 days after their last (three-week) break.
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Gloria occasion
If the epicentre of London’s legal world, where Obiter spends long days, was better served by branches of Matalan, we would have been straight down there for some Union Flag-themed cagoules to mark our patriotism in this Jubilee ‘n’ Olympics year.
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Expert report warns government to hold off RTA portal extension
Government plans to extend the RTA portal from next year were today dealt a blow by one of its own advisers.
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Clarke presses on with judges’ pension cut
The lord chancellor has confirmed government plans to cut judges’ pensions to bring them in line with other public sector workers. In a written ministerial statement yesterday Kenneth Clarke said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne had confirmed to the House that the government ...
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City firm overturns TUPE ruling in Jarvis case
Employment contracts of solicitors made redundant when their employers go into administration should not automatically transfer to law firms acting for the administrators, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) ruled yesterday. The ruling on transfer of undertakings, protection of employment (TUPE) regulations, will free administrators to instruct their own legal advisers. ...
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‘Cut partner bonuses for diversity failures’
Law firm partners who fail to take ‘robust measures’ to meet diversity targets should be financially penalised, according to a leading pro-diversity group. A report from the InterLaw Diversity Forum for LGBT Networks argues that the profession remains ‘stuck culturally in the mid-20th century’. ...