All News articles – Page 1681
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Manifestos pledge to abolish HIPs
A small correction to your article on the main parties' approach to legal issues, in connection with home information packs. In fact, there is a Conservative Party manifesto commitment to ‘abolish home information packs...
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New housing association, retail acquisitions and manufacturer deals
Going Dutch: National firm DLA Piper advised a consortium of lenders on providing debt financing for Dutch retail group Maxeda, enabling it to pay €462.5m (£408m) of debt owed to Citibank. Maxeda and its shareholders were advised by ...
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Permanent administrators appointed to Quinn Insurance
The status of the professional indemnity insurance (PII) policies of more than 2,900 law firms and sole practitioners has today been thrown into uncertainty after the Irish High Court appointed permanent administrators to Irish insurer Quinn Insurance. The Law Society said that its advice to Quinn ...
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Barristers starting to take advantage of reforms
Barristers have started to make use of changes to their practice rules that allow them to operate in new business models.On 1 April the Legal Services Board approved changes to the bar’s code of conduct to enable barristers to practise together in partnership or to become partners in legal disciplinary ...
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Bribery offences create advisory work for law firms
The new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery will provide a lucrative seam of work for lawyers as companies seek to ensure their anti-corruption compliance systems are fit for purpose, experts have predicted. The offence is one of a raft of measures introduced in the ...
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Lawyer issues libel claim against 'solicitorsfromhell' website
A north-east solicitor has instructed libel lawyers Carter-Ruck to bring a claim for damages against the owner of a website that blacklists solicitors and law firms. Scott Eason, principal at Eason Law, is pursuing a claim for damages of between £50,000 and £100,000 and seeking a ...
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Immigration legal aid contracts further delayed
The announcement of the outcome of the tender process for immigration legal aid work has been further delayed, the Legal Services Commission said last week. Firms were due to be notified last Friday whether they had been awarded new contracts to provide publicly funded work, ...
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Most City firms would welcome AIR regulation
Most City firms would welcome a new type of self-regulation being introduced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, but two ‘major City firms’ have said they would probably shun the new system, research seen exclusively by the Gazette has found. Authorised Internal Regulation (AIR) was proposed by ...
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SRA rules out practising certificate fee appeals
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided against providing a general appeals process for firms that end up paying significantly higher practising certificate fees under the new PC fee regime from 2011, it emerged last week. SRA board chair Charles Plant (pictured) told the Gazette that there ...
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Baker & McKenzie using external firms to recover unpaid fees
US and City firm Baker & McKenzie is to instruct external law firms to recover any unpaid legal fees owed to it by clients, the Gazette has learned. It is understood the firm, in an unusual move, has instructed each of its practice areas to pay ...
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Beer window
When the tantalising tendrils of summer sun start warming this green and pleasant land, Obiter’s thoughts naturally turn to one thing: the silky chill of a hard-earned, post-work hop-based beverage. This becomes somewhat more than a yearning should one ever visit the offices of brewers SABMiller on a warm day.
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Belly good show
Think of belly dancing and what image comes to mind? To poetic Obiter, it is a scene of lissome ladies shimmering to exotic music while a handsome sheik, mesmerised, looks on. Outside, the desert wind whispers in the palm trees, plucks at the canvas of the tent and ripples the ...
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Media reporting bill ‘threat’ to vulnerable children
Measures rushed through parliament at the ‘eleventh hour’ to allow greater media reporting of the family courts will put vulnerable children at risk, lawyers have warned. Despite being opposed by lawyers’ and children’s groups, the provisions in the Children Schools and Families Bill were passed last ...
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Bringing lawyers to life
They say image isn’t everything, but whoever ‘they’ are, they clearly have no idea about what it takes to succeed as a modern law firm. Why else would so many firms feel moved to rebrand or relaunch? The latest to jump on the bandwagon is London firm Fisher Meredith. It ...
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Fears over child care lawyer shortage
A shortage of child care solicitors has led to a rise in the use of unqualified paralegal staff to present cases on behalf of local authorities, the Gazette has learned. Jordan Gooch, public sector consultant at recruiters Badenoch & Clark, said there has been a significant ...
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Practical consequences of Twomey case for non-jury trials
Solicitors need to start thinking about the practical consequences of Twomey for non-jury trials, explains Seth Levine
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Libel lawyers should disclose outcomes of their CFA-funded cases
by Gillian Phillips, director of editorial legal services at Guardian News & Media Ltd Steven Heffer can’t resist the temptation to overstate his case (see [2010] Gazette, 9 April, 6). It is simply not the case that the press has ‘chosen not to report the ...
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President's ill-informed claims over equal pay cases
The Law Society president is guilty of making extremely derogatory and ill-informed claims about the role of trade unions in equal pay cases.
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Immigration rules ‘poisoned chalice’, warn lawyers
The government’s decision to add a new ‘highly trusted sponsor’ category to the points-based immigration system is a possible ‘poisoned chalice’ for education providers, immigration lawyers have warned. Educational institutions, such as language schools, can qualify for the new sponsor category, which came into force on ...