All News articles – Page 1797
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News
Domestic violence victims get banking help
Victims of domestic abuse can now bypass banks’ money laundering regulations under new measures to help them gain financial independence from their abusers. The Home Office and the British Bankers Association said last week that victims would be allowed to open accounts with only a ...
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UK unfairly burdened by money laundering regulations
UK solicitors are unfairly burdened by anti-money laundering regulations compared with many of their European counterparts, the Law Society has warned. In its submission to the House of Lords Inquiry into Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism, Chancery Lane also calls for a Europe-wide ...
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Thinktank calls for overhaul of City firm regulation
A legal policy thinktank has today (23 February) called for an urgent shake-up of the regulation of City law firms. Trying to regulate the high-street practitioner and global firms under one regime produces ‘unhappy compromises’, argues the College of Law’s Legal Services Policy Institute. The institute ...
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Society to help firms fight personal injury 'client capture'
Solicitors attacking the insurance company practice of ‘capturing’ personal injury clients have been promised the support of the Law Society. The Accident Compensation Solicitors Group (ACSG), which lobbies for the right of consumers to choose their own solicitor, has attended a meeting at the Law ...
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CDS Direct unbalances the scales of justice
The feature ‘Dial J for Justice’ (see [2009] Gazette, 5 February, 10) demonstrates how the Legal Services Commission is collaborating with the government to reduce substantially, if not extinguish, access to justice through legal aid. My own experience is apt.
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Repossession claims fall in wake of new protocol
The number of new mortgage repossession claims issued in the courts is down by 50% since the credit crunch-inspired introduction of a civil procedure affecting lenders and borrowers. The mortgage pre-action protocol (MPAP), approved by the Master of the Rolls, was introduced for possession claims in ...
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Tax specialists dismiss MP's clampdown motion
City tax lawyers have dismissed as unworkable a parliamentary motion urging the government to clamp down on firms that design tax avoidance schemes. Thirty-two MPs have so far signed an early day motion urging the government to ‘investigate and regulate’ the activities of banks, law firms ...
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Law firms may be forced to disclose lobbying clients
Law firms are a step closer to being forced to disclose the clients on behalf of whom they lobby as the parliamentary debate on lobbying continued this week. Responding to a question last week at prime minister’s question time, Gordon Brown said the government had ...
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Wallace collection
Obiter got quite excited by an email headed ‘Matthew Pryke’s Kilimanjaro climb for Honeypot’. Was this someone more dedicated to the pursuit of honey than Winnie the Pooh?
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Medium sized firms join forces to take on competition
Two legal heavyweights are to head a national network of law firms formed in the latest response to competition challenges resulting from the Legal Services Act. The Legal Alliance (TLA) is a group of mainly medium-sized firms which will market business and consumer services under ...
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Conveyancing solicitors need to control their own destiny
So, there we have it. Not only do we have to endure the president of the Law Society telling we conveyancers ‘don’t panic’ in the teeth of the worst recession for two generations (see [2009] Gazette, 29 January, 1), we now have the unedifying spectacle of the Gazette as a ...
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Law Society to help develop conveyancing websites
The Law Society is to join efforts to develop websites that will display what progress has been made up and down a chain of property transactions. Law Society President Paul Marsh told the Gazette that the Society’s e-conveyancing taskforce is working with a number of ...
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Sharia finance joins global economic downturn
Hopes that Islamic finance would escape the economic downturn are unfounded, early figures suggest. After six years of growth, the value of sukuk bonds issued fell from $42bn (£28bn) in 2007 to $20bn (£13.4bn) in 2008, according to a new survey. The Islamic Finance 2009 ...
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Tales of femininity
More tales, from the terrifyingly recent past, about the judiciary's nervousness of anything vaguely feminine entering the courtroom. Jackie Mensah, an associate with Bennett Griffin in Worthing, recalls ‘having the privilege of experiencing a male district judge at the Principal Registry informing a female counsel that he really couldn't "hear" ...
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Food for thought
Despite its reputation as a profession of bon vivants, the legal world figures only lightly in the Cabinet Office’s ‘trough list’ of hospitality enjoyed (or endured) by senior civil servants. In contrast to their counterparts in IT and consultancy businesses – not to mention the arms trade – legal firms ...
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Give us the tools
I refer to Peter Williamson’s comments on the Solicitors Regulation Authority board’s decision not to ban referral fees (see [2009] Gazette, 12 February, 9).
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Human rights
Byelaws – Campers – Demonstrations – Freedom of association – Freedom of expression Tabernacle v Secretary of State for Defence: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Laws, Wall, Stanley Burnton): 5 February 2009 ...
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Human rights are too important to be left to party politics
Dominic Raab is a Tory rising star. He is currently chief of staff for Dominic Grieve MP. He has served David Davis in the same capacity and he will doubtless go far. In his recent book, The Assault on Liberty: what went wrong with rights (Fourth Estate), Raab flies a ...
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Mining investments and transport negotiations
China investment: Magic circle firm Clifford Chance, alongside Australian firm Mallesons, advised Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco) on its $19.5bn (£13.4bn) investment in the Rio Tinto mining group. The transaction involved the issue of convertible bonds to Chinalco, which will increase Chinalco's shareholding ...
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We are out of touch and self-serving
Your anonymous correspondent who bemoans the present state of conveyancing hankers for an age that is fast disappearing and rightly so (see [2009] Gazette, 5 February, 9).