End Lugano uncertainty
Will the new government’s approach to EU relations help provide certainty in enforcing judgments – especially for those injured overseas?
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has stated that the UK will not rejoin the EU single market or the customs union in his lifetime. As the EU sees the Lugano Convention as an integral part of the single market, it will take a shift in position on one side or the other in negotiations for the benefits and protections of Lugano to return. Importantly, Lugano includes protections on jurisdiction for cross-border injury victims, consumers and employees, and provides a relatively straightforward procedure for enforcing a judgment between signatory states.
While Hague 2019 is a constructive step forward on enforcement of judgments between the UK and EU27, it has notable limitations for individuals seeking access to justice and will not plug the gaps that remain following Brexit for the victims of accidents abroad in the EU.
Those campaigning for the rights of cross-border injury victims had been holding out hope that a change of government might reset the dial with the EU in a way that finally reopens discussions on the UK’s reaccession to Lugano. If the UK’s reaccession to Lugano remains a political red line, then steps could and should now be taken to replicate the special jurisdiction and enforcement protections previously afforded to individuals in Lugano through a new bilateral agreement on cross-border citizens’ rights.
Although Shabana Mahmood may have an in-tray brimming with problems closer to home, dealing with this key part of our relationship with the EU would provide much-needed certainty for cross-border injury victims as they navigate a difficult and vulnerable time in their lives.
Christopher Deacon
Partner in international injury, Stewarts, London EC4
Resolve retainers
I share Master Whalan’s surprise as to why law firm retainer disputes are increasingly coming to court (‘Costs judge “baffled” why retainer disputes still going to court’, 3 July).
Clearly, the Solicitors Act 1974 needs an update to avoid preliminary arguments over whether a bill is actually a bill – or a request for payment on account – before any debate can be had on its contents.
A fresh framework in line with modern legal practice and one that is easily explicable to clients – they cannot be expected to have a grasp of technical costs law when receiving a bill – is the solution.
Furthermore, there is no excuse for such disputes after all this time. Law firms should engage an expert to review their retainers and terms and conditions to ensure that they are not next on the receiving end of an adverse ruling in the Senior Courts Costs Office.
David Bailey-Vella
Vice chair, Association of Costs Lawyers
Positive probate experience
I am the executor (in person) for a relation who died in March. No inheritance tax account required.
I applied online on 4 April. I got an acknowledgement on 16 April. On 29 April I got a query which I answered the same day. On 11 July I got an email saying my application was approved and on 13 July the probate arrived, correct in every particular and with as many sealed copies as I had asked for. That makes exactly 100 days – 14 weeks and two days. And it is on the online index.
So have I just been lucky or has the probate register turned the corner? How does the recent experience of others compare?
Andrew Turek
London
Litigation’s new clothes
‘End court management of litigation’, writes Colin Jaque (Feedback, 12 July). Is there any system of ‘likes’ or reposting for letters in the Gazette? If there is then you get my vote. You are a brave man.
The actual end to the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is that the emperor set his dogs on the boy who yelled out in the crowd and went on his merry way, still naked.
Having been a litigator for many years, I gave up litigation shortly after the Jackson reforms – more through frustration than anything else. Quite how these further levels of complexity (Woolf then Jackson) were ever supposed to benefit those they were intended to benefit (the mythical ‘consumer’ of legal services) was (and remains) beyond me. Please keep going.
Martin Reynolds
Parfitt Cresswell, Reading
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