All News articles – Page 1595
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News
LoveFilm acquisition, steel demerger, fencing sponsorship and shoe sale
In the picture: City firm Hogan Lovells advised internet retailer Amazon on acquiring £200m worth of shares in film rental company LoveFilm, giving it a majority stake. City firm Stephenson Harwood advised LoveFilm. ...
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Coalition is moving the Bribery Act issue into the 'too difficult' tray
Monty Raphael, special counsel to Peters & Peters and author of Blackstone’s Guide to the Bribery Act 2010, describes the government’s decision to delay implementation of the act as ‘puzzling’.
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Acting solicitors
Budding thespian solicitors, who have been waiting for a chance to prove it is not just barristers who can be star performers on their feet, may have their chance to shine this summer. The Tricycle Theatre in north London is again opening its doors to ...
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ProcureCos add insult to injury
I welcome Avtar Bhatoa’s assessment of the threat posed by the use of ProcureCos to obtain contracts from the Legal Services Commission. The Ministry of Justice proposals threaten the very existence of our firms.
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Taking advantage of a media circus
When a high-profile television presenter makes an age-discrimination claim against the BBC you can be sure there’ll be a frenzy of media attention. That’s exactly what happened in the case of Miriam O’Reilly, one of the former hosts of the TV show, Countryfile. O’Reilly lost her ...
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Council cuts reprieve for legal advice centres
The High Court has quashed a decision by administrative body London Councils to cut £10m from its £26.4m grant scheme for voluntary organisations across the capital, including legal advice centres. The decision would have left more than 200 groups, including the Mary Ward Legal Advice ...
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Citizens’ advice bureaux in Birmingham to close
Five citizens’ advice bureaux in Birmingham are expected to close their doors next week, unless they can raise £50,000 per month to continue, after the city council withdrew all of its £600,000-a-year funding. Without new money, the City Centre, Northfield, Tyseley, Handsworth and Kingstanding services ...
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Appeal court backs CFA costs agreement
Solicitors must be allowed to shoulder the risk of adverse costs orders on behalf of their clients to ensure proper access to justice, the Court of Appeal has ruled, in a judgment welcomed by the Law Society. Giving judgment in Sibthorpe and Morris v London Borough ...
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The proposed legal aid cuts are both irresponsible and inequitable
The recent rally by Justice for All brought to the heart of Westminster the concerns of a coalition of organisations about the Conservative-led government’s proposed cuts to the legal aid budget.
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Law firm not liable to loan losses, says appeal court
A law firm that gave negligent advice to a bank before the bank lost £28m in loans advanced to two local authorities does not have to reimburse those losses, the Court of Appeal ruled last week. Overturning a High Court decision, the appeal court ruled in ...
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Treatment of inherited assets upon divorce
Ever since the House of Lords decision in White v White [2000] UKHL 54, there has been an ongoing debate among family lawyers regarding the treatment of inherited assets upon divorce. As Lord Nicholls stated in White: ‘The judge should take it into account. He should decide how important it ...
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MoJ drops bill to modernise law of damages
The government dropped proposals to modernise the law of damages last month. The Ministry of Justice has decided not to proceed with the Civil Law Reform Bill published in December 2009. The bill had put forward several amendments to the law on damages, as recommended ...
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Embracing new business models
Avtar Bhatoa’s article is an interesting contribution to the debate about ProcureCos and their role in allowing the bar to bid directly for Legal Services Commission contracts (see [2011] Gazette, 27 January, 12). But his characterisation of the two sides of the legal profession as being at loggerheads is ...
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What price success? The ramifications of Campbell v MGN
Just as the post-Jackson consultation on abolishing the recoverability of success fees is hotting up, claimants, whose arguments for retention are based on access to justice, have been dealt a blow by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
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Competition law
Transport - Abuse of dominant position - Causation - Coal industry Enron Coal Services Ltd (in liquidation) v English Welsh and Scottish Railway Ltd: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Jacob, Lloyd, Patten): 19 January 2011 ...
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Confessions of a divorce lawyer
Geoffrey Rutter’s comments on defended divorces remind me of the days when fashionable barristers could appear in lists of those about whom the readers of popular newspapers would like to read, writes James Morton. In 1935, barrister Norman Birkett appeared in 20th place, equal with the ...
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Fears grow over EU contract law 'confusion'
Magic circle firm Allen & Overy warned that a pan-European contract law could create ‘confusion and uncertainty’ for business, as the deadline for submissions to a European Commission consultation on the issue passed this week. The firm also criticised a lack of business representation on the ...
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Counter-terrorism and punishment without trial
by Corinna Ferguson, legal officer at Liberty It was surely not unreasonable to expect that the coalition government’s counter-terror review would put the final nail in the coffin of control orders. This flawed system for dealing with suspected terrorists has suffered numerous defeats in the courts, ...
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Supreme Court issues guidance on courtroom twitter use
The Supreme Court has today given the ‘green light’ to allow people to ‘tweet’ from inside the courtroom. It has issued guidance on the use of live text-based communication by legal teams, journalists and members of the public of what is going on in court. ...
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Criminal procedure
Sentencing - Discharge of jury - Disclosure - Jury tampering R v (1) John Twomey (2) Peter Blake (3) Barry Hibberd (4) Glen Cameron: CA (Crim Div) (Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Mr Justice Rafferty, Mr Justice Roderick Evans): ...