Crackdown on advisers backed

Solicitors have this week welcomed European legislation aimed at clamping down on rogue advisers who practise cold calling and adopt other pressure tactics to push consumers into buying legal services and back-up insurance products.

The European Union directive on unfair commercial practices focuses particularly on misleading and aggressive practices, which include the targeting of people who have suffered bereavement or serious illness in order to sell a product.

Making prolonged or repeated visits to the consumer's home or other persistent and unsolicited contact will also be prohibited.

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said the directive was a step towards stamping out unregulated claims advisers who skimmed a large portion off successful claimants' compensation.

'We particularly support measures to ban cold calling and pressure techniques, which subject people to repeated and prolonged visits to their homes, as claims farmers try to get them to sign an agreement,' she added.

'We want to see an end to people being pressurised into agreements to pursue claims and into buying unsuitable loan and insurance products to fund the claim.'

A spokeswoman for the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers said it welcomed any EU law that served to protect injured people from unscrupulous operators.

'We have consistently said there is no need for people to pursue their claims through middle-men, and we have also argued the case for regulation of claims management companies with the government,' she added.

Meanwhile, the Personal Injury Association (PIA), set up in February to promote common standards among accident compensation companies (see [2003] Gazette, 27 February, 4), has renamed itself the Claims Standards Association and branched out into other types of claims.

The founding board includes representatives from Russell Jones & Walker - along with the firm's specialist personal injury arm New Claims Direct - as well as Preston law firm Anderson Eden.

Managing director Andrew Wigmore said it made the move after PIA members realised that a set standard or code of practice could apply to all claims.

Paula Rohan