Last 3 months headlines – Page 1241
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Civil partners get the same divorce treatment as married couples, appeal judges rule
In a landmark financial judgment The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the courts will treat civil partners in the same way as married couples when their relationship ends. The court last week overturned a High Court decision that awarded west end actor Donald Gallagher nearly £1.7m following the break-up ...
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LSB spurns conveyancers’ litigation ambitions
The Legal Services Board (LSB) has refused the Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ application to regulate conveyancers conducting litigation and advocacy. The LSB said it had not granted the application 'on the grounds that the CLC lacks the legal power to make rules and regulations that ...
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Lit funder’s profits up
A leading US litigation funder has announced £10m profits ahead of its expansion into the UK market. In its financial results released this week, Burford Capital revealed it committed around £113m to 19 new investments during 2011. Since being launched in September 2009, the group has ...
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Custodial sentence for holiday juror
A juror who pretended to be ill to go on holiday has been jailed for 56 days. Janet Chapman had telephoned the court during a four-week trial to say she would miss two weeks because she was suffering from sciatica. But Chapman had phoned in the ...
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Immigration
Asylum - Refugee - Temporary admission R (on the application of ST (Eritrea)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Supreme Court (Lords Hope DP, Brown, Mance, Kerr, Clarke and Dyson, Lady Hale) : 21 March 2012 ...
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Fury like a courtroom scorned
Sitting on a jury seems an increasingly precarious business. Janet Chapman this week joined the growing list of jury members who have taken the short jump across to the dock. Her crime was so ridiculous it reads like a rejected Shameless episode. Chapman had faced three ...
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Criminal law
Appeal - Engaging in misleading commercial practice R v Scottish and Southern Energy plc: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division (Lord Justice Davis, Mr Justice Nicol and Judge Kramer QC): 16 March 2012 ...
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Intellectual property
Transfer of action - Action assigned to Patents County Court - Defendant applying for transfer of trade mark proceedings to High Court Comic Enterprises Ltd v Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation: PCC (Judge Birss QC): 22 March 2012 ...
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Secret trials: ‘explore alternatives'
Government proposals to extend the use of secret hearings in cases where evidence might compromise national security are a radical departure from the UK’s ‘traditions of open justice and fairness’, MPs and peers said today. In a critical report on the Justice and Security Green Paper, ...
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Intended retirement ruling opens door to employment tribunal claims
The Court of Appeal handed down judgment this week in the case of R&R Plant Hire (Peterborough) Ltd v Bailey, ruling in favour of the employee. The decision is not only a win for Mr Bailey; it is also a boon for an inestimable number of employees who will suddenly ...
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The FOI Act cannot be compared to legal privilege
Is it possible to deliver frank, robust, clear advice if you know it might become public? This is one of the key points members of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee must consider in their post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act.
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Workhouse legislation goes on bonfire of statutory dead wood
More than 800 pieces of ‘statutory dead wood’ from the 1600s and earlier would be scrapped under measures proposed today by the two bodies charged with tidying and modernising UK legislation. Laws identified for repeal include a 1696 act to fund the rebuilding of St Paul’s ...
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Green forms and fixed fees
I am impressed by the number of people who fondly (I think fondly is the correct word) remember Green forms. I wonder how many of you recall five-pound fixed fees. It had a certain ring to it. If your client was not eligible to sign the Green form then you'd ...
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SRA to shut 15 ARP firms
A total of 15 firms will be closed down after failing to find an escape route from the assigned risks pool. The firms will be shut after failing to secure professional indemnity insurance on the open market by the 1 April deadline, the Solicitors Regulation Authority ...
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DBAs move a step closer
With damages-based agreements (or contingency fees as they used to be known) coming into being next April, the Civil Justice Council has now set the wheels in motion to begin drawing up the all-important rules that will govern how the new fees are actually going to operate.
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Three golden rules of regulation
I met representatives of the Legal Services Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority this week. Among many things discussed, I told them the obvious: that the ease of explanation to outsiders of the UK’s regulatory system for the legal profession has not been improved by the Clementi reforms, but made ...
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LeO unveils complaints publication policy
The Legal Ombudsman is to publish the total number of complaints processed against law firms – but not the details of what they have done wrong. The consumer watchdog starts collating complaints from today, ready to publish them for the first time in July. ...
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HSBC will not face competition probe over panel
The Office of Fair Trading has declined to investigate HSBC over the small size of its conveyancing panel, saying the arrangement does not have a ‘sufficiently negative impact on competition’. East Grinstead sole practitioner Elaine McGloin contacted the watchdog after HSBC announced its new panel in ...