All News articles – Page 1743
-
News
Securing licences, debt refinancing and selling lager
Brewing up: Magic circle firm Freshfields advised brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev on selling its Tennent’s Lager brand to beverage company C&C Group for £180m. C&C Group was advised by City firm LG. Course ...
-
News
Firms seek emergency loans to pay for high indemnity premiums
Cash-strapped law firms are seeking emergency loans to pay for hiked professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums, amid claims that many insurers are tightening their payment terms. Independent finance providers Syscap and Key Business Professions (KBP) have reported a recent surge in the number of firms asking ...
-
News
Green words need to be translated into practical regulatory requirements
by Vanessa Havard-Williamsis chair of the Legal Sector Alliance policy committee. Ahead of the G20 meeting this week in Pittsburgh, the Legal Sector Alliance has released a communique addressed to the leaders of the G20, calling for practical regulatory requirements – not hot air.
-
News
HIP protection
Your recent online story ‘Estate agencies charging 50% more for HIPs’, based on a survey by Which?, raises some important issues. But the results must be viewed in the correct context.
-
News
Personal injury
Contract terms – Disclosure – Miners – Vibration white finger Brian Strydom v Vendside Ltd: QBD (Mr Justice Blair): 18 August 2009 The appellant (S) appealed against a decision dismissing ...
-
News
Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, September 1939 [Britain declared war on Germany 70 years ago today. To prevent the Roll ...
-
News
Negligence
Asbestos – Breach of duty of care – Contractors Corus UK Ltd v (1) Cavendish (UK) Ltd (2) Cavendish Laboratories Ltd (3) Woods Building Services Ltd: QBD (Mr Justice Foskett): 7 August 2009 ...
-
News
Purdy and propriety
It was entirely right to include a full review of the recent decision in Purdy v DPP (see [2009] Gazette, 20 August, 10). The Gazette's choice of Ms Purdy's solicitor Saimo Chahal as the author was no doubt reasonable.
-
News
Tall (or not) story
They are among life’s great imponderables. Does God exist? Does a falling tree make any sound if there is no one there to hear it? Does humour have a place in legal services? This last question has been the subject of some debate in the ...
-
News
Advice scheme launched for vulnerable young people
The Children’s Society has launched an innovative pilot internet and telephone service offering legal advice to young people in Lambeth and Camden in London, and in Colchester, Essex. While available to all, Lawyers for Young People is principally aimed at ensuring the most vulnerable get access ...
-
News
Intellectual property: How L’Oreal won the battle of the scents
In a major victory for the owners of well-known brands, the European Court of Justice may have crushed the market in ‘imitation’ products – and caused problems for any brand that might be similar to a well-known brand.
-
News
Finding a lawyer in Lapland or Lampedusa
The business of finding a lawyer in another EU country, and hopefully a competent one with experience in the field you want, has recently come to the top of the agenda.
-
News
Might the end of the long-serving six-minute unit be in sight?
For at least the past 30 years, chargeable time has been recorded in units of six minutes. Various justifications are made out for the six-minute unit but, whatever the reasons, it’s just been a convenient measure because hourly rates can be divided by 10 to calculate the value of a ...
-
News
Data page for August 2009
The data page is the financial rates and data complied for the Law Society Gazette by MoneyFacts Group, the UK's largest supplier of savings and mortgage data. DownloadsDownload the data page for August 2009 below ...
-
News
Building society hit by £41m mortgage fraud
Solicitors and other professionals have been implicated in £41m of mortgage fraud which plunged the mutual Chelsea Building Society deep into the red in the first half, it emerged today. In its interim accounts Chelsea said that the mortgage fraud, perpetrated between 2006 and 2008, involved ...
-
News
ABS 'dominance' could push smaller firms out of market
The advent of alternative business structures (ABSs) could bring about a ‘point of no return’ whereby smaller firms are pushed out of the market by powerful new players, a legal thinktank has claimed. The College of Law’s Legal Services Policy Institute has warned that, by the ...
-
News
Bar Standards Board warning over ABSs
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has said it would be ‘wrong’ to allow barristers to join alternative business structures (ABSs) without evidence of whether all forms of the new structure are ‘compatible with the regulatory objectives’ of the Legal Services Act 2007, or necessary for the benefit of consumers. ...
-
News
Advice for Life charity faced pressure from LSC before closure
Advice for Life, the collapsed parent charity of East Anglia’s two law centres, was struggling to repay funds to the Legal Services Commission before it went bust, it has emerged. Advice for Life’s closure caused Cambridge Law Centre and Huntingdon Law Centre to close for good at the end of ...
-
News
Legal aid lacuna
I am struck by the number of letters that you have published recently from various senior officials from the Legal Services Commission attempting to justify their destruction of the legal aid scheme.
-
News
‘Rebalancing’ the legal aid budget
There is, it seems, no letup for criminal practitioners, with the MoJ’s announcement of further fee reductions last week.