Last 3 months headlines – Page 1242
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Big Brother in the Big Society
Civil liberties have few friends in government – only in opposition. Witness the coalition’s decision to hand police and intelligence agencies far-reaching new powers to monitor emails, phone calls and websites. ‘Big Brother WILL be watching you,’ booms today’s Independent.
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Complaints publishing feels like a fudge
At what point does a compromise become a fudge? Without doubt, the Legal Ombudsman had a difficult task on its hands deciding how to publish details of complaints. The status quo of printing anonymised case studies was generally accepted to be counter-productive ...
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£1bn swaps claims going ahead despite settlements
The first wave of funded claims against banks by business owners who bought interest-rate hedging contracts are close to being ready, the Gazette can reveal. Norton Accord, the company that has secured the backing of funds to bring up to £1bn of claims, confirmed today that ...
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Pension lifetime allowance election deadline – 5 April 2012
The ‘lifetime allowance’ is the maximum amount of value that you can accrue within your pension schemes without suffering an additional tax charge on extraction. The lifetime allowance for a partner’s pension pot from all pension sources (excluding state pensions) is currently £1.8m, but this is being reduced to £1.5m ...
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US extradition treaty ‘one-sided’, MPs report
The extradition treaty between the UK and the US is failing to protect the rights of British citizens, MPs claim today. A report by the House of Commons’ home affairs select committee says that the 2003 treaty makes it easier to extradite a British citizen ...
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SRA ponders £250m fine limit for firms
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is looking to close a loophole that restricts its fining powers for firms other than alternative business structures. The Legal Services Act 2007 allows the SRA to fine ABSs up to £250m, compared with a limit of £2,000 for traditional law firms. ...
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Integrity in practice
Discussion continues on the meaning of outcomes-focused regulation, the implementation of the now not-so-new Handbook and the attitude of the SRA to its enforcement. Much of this concerns the retrospective justification of procedures and, in the context of entity-based regulation, whether a breach that is not ...
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Committal fee challenge fails
The High Court has ruled that the government’s decision to scrap lawyers’ fees for committal proceedings was lawful. Dismissing the judicial review sought by the Law Society, Lord Justice Burnton cited the impact of legal aid fee cuts on lawyers. 'No one ...
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Civil procedure
Practice - Striking out - Claimant bringing claim for damages and permanent non-disclosure injunction Giggs (previously known as CTB) v News Group Newspapers Ltd and another: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Tugendhat): 2 March 2012 ...
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What do you know about the European Ombudsman?
In a pretty park in the European quarter of Brussels is situated the local base of an institution that should be better known to lawyers, since it can provide recourse to clients. The world may be filling up with ombudsmen, but the granddaddy of them all (in European terms) is ...
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Immigration
Appeal - Evidence - Use of linguistic analysis reports RB (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lords Justice Rix, Moses and Mr Justice Briggs): 13 March 2012 ...
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Pro bono: are lawyers leading the way?
Working at the National Pro Bono Centre I get to observe a large portion of the organised pro bono activities undertaken by members of the legal profession. One of the first things that struck me when I started working as a caseworker at LawWorks was the scale of the volunteer ...
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Immigration
Asylum seeker - Child - Best interests of child HK (Afghanistan) and others (by their litigation friend) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lords Justice Pill, Rimer and Elias): 16 March 2012 ...
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Don’t bank on loyalty
My firm, along with thousands of others, is no longer on the HSBC panel. As a result of the ludicrous volume of enquiries being raised by the bank’s preferred lawyers for this area in a case I am currently involved in, and because of the unrealistic and unworkable undertakings which ...
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No to HSBC
Having received the 13 pages of instructions from Countrywide Conveyancing Services in connection with a HSBC mortgage it is providing to my purchasing clients, it is obvious that this new procedure is doubling the work for conveyancing solicitors not on the HSBC panel while leaving all the liability and risk ...
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Child abduction
Removal outside jurisdiction - Return order - British mother returning from Australia to UK with child Re S (a child) (international abduction: subjective fear of risk): SC (Justices of the Supreme Court Lords Phillips (president), Mance, Kerr, Wilson, Lady ...