Last 3 months headlines – Page 1207
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Entity regulation - solicitors beware!
Amid all the publicity surrounding the introduction of alternative business structures and outcomes-focused regulation, a third part of the revolution in the regulation of legal services has attracted little comment - the move to entity regulation. Yet it is at least as important as either of the other two, and ...
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Barclays ‘faces $6bn in Libor scandal claims’
Barclays Bank Plc could face claims totalling $6bn globally following revelations that staff members were involved in the manipulation of the London inter-bank offered rate (Libor), the Gazette has learned.
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IFA rule under scrutiny
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has signalled that it is likely to scrap the requirement for lawyers to refer clients only to wholly independent financial advisers, as opposed to advisers contracted to sell the products of one or more providers.
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Society plans accreditation scheme for will-writing
The Law Society is to launch a will-writing and probate accreditation scheme along the lines of its Conveyancing Quality Scheme, it emerged last week in a speech by the chief executive. The speech also contained calls for solicitors to exploit the potential of will banks ...
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Top-100 annual results show PEP up by 8%
The first batch of top-ranking law firms to publish annual financial results for 2011/12 have reported average growth in profit per equity partner (PEP) of 8% (see table below). However, this figure masks wide variations in trading performance which have also been complicated by merger activity.
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Indian call for legal liberalisation
India’s top law firms and largest companies are desperate for the country’s legal market to be liberalised, according to new research. A YouGov poll, in association with magic circle firm Allen & Overy, found near-unanimous agreement among more than 300 Indian legal stakeholders. In total, 96% ...
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Time to rebuild the small print
Speaking in the House of Lords on 25 July 1988 in the debate on what was to become the Housing Act 1988, the Earl of Caithness, on behalf of the then government, said: ‘One of the points frequently made about the old-style shorthold tenancy procedure [i.e. the protected shorthold under ...
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News focus: who will bring a Libor claim?
Investment bank Liberum Capital estimates that Barclays global exposure to claims arising from staff’s manipulation of the Libor rate could be $6bn - just over a quarter of the bank’s value.
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Unintended outcomes
‘First, do no harm’ is an injunction generally attributed to the medical profession, and it is a useful one. The phrase sprang to mind in examining the SRA’s plan to scrap the requirement for solicitors to refer clients only to wholly independent financial advisers. As SIFA ...
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Redress offered for mis-selling interest rate hedging products is hardly draconian
by Stuart Brothers, a consultant to SRBlegal Business Lawyers. He contributed to the FSA review and briefed a group of MPs on the issue The Financial Services Authority’s review of interest rate hedging products has resulted in an agreement by the four major banks to offer ...
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Extradition
Extradition hearing - European Arrest Warrant - Defendants’ extradition sought by relevant judicial authority pursuant to European Arrest Warrant HH v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa; PH v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa; F-K (FC) ...
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Review of super-regulators calls for more openness
The Legal Services Board and the Office for Legal Complaints should open their board meetings to the public and publish all items of spending over £500, a Ministry of Justice Review has recommended. The report of the first triennial review of bodies established under the 2007 ...
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Case management; murder; and costs
The decision in R v Newell [2012] EWCA Crim 650 will do much to ease solicitor concerns about incriminating their clients when completing case management forms, whether in the magistrates’ court or at a plea and case management hearing in the Crown court.
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Wills and probate company goes ABS
Birmingham wills and probate company Northwood Banks & Co has become the second company licensed as an alternative business structure (ABS) by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC). The firm, which since 1987 has provided will writing and probate services, has now been licensed to ...
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Our work needs to be informed by the views practitioners
This is my last opportunity to write to the profession as president of the Law Society, so I shall use this column to thank all those who have supported me over the past year and to reflect on the issues that seem most important as I hand over to my ...
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Best of British?
The government’s reported decision to expunge understanding of the Human Rights Act from the Life in the UK Test for migrants resurrects the old trope about ‘what it means to be British’. It would seem to presuppose monarchist sympathies, at the very least, as applicants will ...
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Trust in Baldrick
In its struggle for survival in the face of successive and impending legal aid cuts, Hackney Community Law Centre has some stalwart allies. It hosted a reception in the House of Lords last week to thank its supporters. Two of its patrons, Lord Low of Dalston and the MP for ...
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Party line
Last week’s Law Society Summer Party at the Wallace Collection in Marylebone took place in what can only be described as London’s grandest conservatory. Any number of the great and good turned up, including Ken Clarke, whose cheerful insouciance amid a throng not universally well disposed to his policies can ...