All News articles – Page 1840
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News
Civil procedure
Costs – Paper applications – Protective costs orders – Setting aside – Application of principles for making orders – Procedure in Court of Appeal R (on the application of Compton) v Wiltshire Primary Care Trust: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Waller, Buxton, Smith): 1 July 2008 ...
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Practice Q&A: Keeping it clean
Can I delay accounting for and paying VAT to HM Revenue & Customs on clients’ bills until I have received payment from the client? No. The effect of HM Revenue & Customs Notice 700 is to make unlawful and ineffective the practice of a solicitor writing ...
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France unveils Clementi-style review
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has set in motion a Clementi-style review of the country’s legal profession so that French practices can compete with their Anglo-Saxon rivals. In a letter to Jean-Michel Darrois, who is heading the review, Sarkozy said it was necessary to give French firms ...
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CPS trial plans slammed
New measures allowing non-legal Crown Prosecution Service staff to conduct trials at magistrates’ courts were this week condemned as dumbing down the service by a leading criminal defence practitioner. Section 55 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which came into force this week, allows ...
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Data deal
City firm Macfarlanes and Guernsey’s Carey Olsen advised the PFB Data Centre Fund on a joint venture with e-Shelter, a German data centre developer and operator, to develop a campus of data centre buildings near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. It is projected to be the largest data centre in the UK ...
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Day In The Life
Solicitor Anthony Edwards tells Catherine Baksi why, after 36 years in practice, he still enjoys going to work Anthony Edwards is a solicitor-advocate and senior partner at East End of London crime and family firm TV Edwards, which recently merged with Finsbury firm Taylor Nichol. He ...
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Early days for flexible working
Many firms have flexible working policies, but take-up remains relatively low. Is a decent work-life balance possible in the legal profession? There is often a time lag between policy and reality. Despite legislative changes and the fact that many firms now have work-life balance policies, ...
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Discrimination: possession proceedings and landlords
The House of Lords decision in Lewisham LBC v Malcolm [2008] UKHL 43, concerning the effect of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 on possession proceedings, will come as a great relief to landlords (see [2008] Gazette, 10 July, 23). Although the decision may be seen as wholly sensible in a ...
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Falconer fiction
It is worrying that Lord Falconer should believe that: ‘We are a country that plays by the rules’ (see [2008] Gazette, 26 June, 16). Many of us have long suspected that New Labour inhabits a different planet from the rest of the country and his comment tends to reinforce that ...
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Feeling flushed
We have all heard of the Seven Wonders of the World – the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon etcetera, but Obiter has learned of a new addition to the monumental list – the Fertility Toilet of South Wales. It is to be found in the Crown Prosecution ...
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Health and Safety
Accidents – Breach of statutory duty – Employers’ liability – Oil rigs – Scotland – Work equipment Spencer-Franks v Kellogg Brown & Root Ltd & Ors: HL (Lords Hoffmann, Rodger of Earlsferry, Carswell, Mance, Neuberger of Abbotsbury): 2 July 2008 ...
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Immigration
Education – Courses – Examinations – Extensions of time – Leave to remain – Students G Omerenma Obed & 7 Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice Sedley, Longmore, Moses): 1 July 2008 ...
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Panic and rough justice
Government legislation relating to witness anonymity could seriously damage a defendant’s right to a fair trial Following the House of Lords judgment in the case of R v Davis, the government is rushing through legislation in relation to anonymous witnesses with indecent haste. There clearly is ...
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US legislators resist libel laws
‘UK should not impose free-speech standards on rest of world’ Washington will make moves to prevent the enforcement of English libel judgments against American authors unless UK defamation laws are brought into line with those of the US, a New York State legislator warned this week. ...
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Long and short of it
The annual report of the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner has always been a slightly odd document in our view – for its length, if nothing else. You wonder why a 20-person organisation whose sole task is to oversee the Law Society’s complaints-handling activity has to ...
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Pleural plaques threat
A government consultation on whether people with pleural plaques should be able to claim damages has been criticised by a leading insurance lawyer as threatening to undermine the ‘constitutional separation of the judiciary and executive’. The government announced the consultation last week after the House of ...
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Spurred on
Solicitors think nothing of traversing the world in the name of ‘charidee’ – hopping across the Sahara blindfolded with a small dry cracker for sustenance, that sort of thing. But one of the more fun-sounding activities was that undertaken by a team of six from Salisbury ...
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Put diversity on the agenda, urge counsel
Leading black minority ethnic (BME) in-house counsel have called on aspiring company lawyers to use their positions to promote the diversity agenda. Sandie Okoro, group general counsel at Baring Asset Management, said: ‘You have an enormous amount of influence as an in-house counsel, so get diversity ...