Last 3 months headlines – Page 1383

  • News

    Jurisdiction

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Conflict of laws - Challenge to jurisdiction - Parties entering into licence agreement Seven Licensing Company Sarl and another company v FFG-Platinum SA and other companies: Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court (Mr Justice Gloster): 16 November 2011 ...

  • News

    Ombudsman can also exonerate

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    There has been a lot of discussion about the Legal Ombudsman’s recent announcement on publishing the names of lawyers who have given poor service to their clients. The LeO was keen to emphasise that this applies to only a small proportion of lawyers. Inevitably some ...

  • News

    On guard

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Obiter once saw a robot prison guard demonstrated in the US. The Dalek-like contraption was deployed in earnest only once, to get CCTV footage of a prison riot. Not surprisingly, it was a one-way mission.

  • News

    Field of dreams

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    It’s well known that even the dullest and dustiest desk-bound male lawyer has the occasional Walter Mitty fantasy. Here’s a perfect Christmas present for him, from the pen of media lawyer Roger Field.

  • News

    Bare necessity

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Gyles Brandreth is not a man well versed in the art of restraint. So who better to lecture a group of solicitors about the art of communication than the former MP and One Show contributor? Brandreth, invited by DBG Communications, had plenty of tips last week ...

  • News

    All present and correct

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Santa’s grotto opened for business early at a Walsall firm, when QualitySolicitors CMHT offered its support to Operation Christmas Child. Staff from all three branches wrapped and filled shoe boxes with small gifts they had donated to send to the world’s neediest children. Val Cox, ...

  • News

    Lawyer, heal thyself

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    I see that John Osborne’s 1964 play Inadmissible Evidence has been revived to its usual ecstatic reviews. The Daily Telegraph’s critic said he had little doubt that the character was ‘ripped straight from the dramatist’s own mind and heart and set down on paper’.

  • News

    Insolvency

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Compulsory winding-up order - Liquidator - Appointment Re Business Dream Ltd: ChD (Judge Behrens sitting as a judge of the High Court): 8 November 2011 BD Ltd (the company) traded ...

  • News

    Deferring a minor’s ­entitlement to capital beyond 18

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    In Wright v Gater [2011] EWHC 2881 (Ch), Mr Justice Norris made some very helpful comments on the court’s approach to applications under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958 (VTA) which seek to defer a minor’s entitlement to capital beyond 18. This application was made on ...

  • News

    Immigration

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Right of appeal - Claim for asylum - Notice of refusal of leave to enter AS (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; CW (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; SD (Zimbabwe) v Secretary ...

  • News

    Local authority

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Public library - Duty of library authority - Defendant local authorities making changes to library services R (on the application of Green) v Gloucestershire County Council; R (on the application of Rowe and another) v Somerset County Council: QBD ...

  • News

    Privilege

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Legal professional privilege - Solicitor and client - Communications between legal adviser and client JSC BTA Bank v Shalabayev and another: CD (Mr Justice Henderson): 10 November 2011 As part ...

  • News

    Sir Scott Baker made a fundamental mistake in his extradition review

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    It must be gratifying for Sir Scott Baker that in Joshua Rozenberg he has at least one champion for his review of the UK’s extradition laws. But Mr Rozenberg’s seems to be very much the minority view on matters of forum and our treaty with the US.

  • News

    Aid imbroglio

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    I was recently telephoned by Bridgend Magistrates’ Court to be told that a client of mine had been arrested on warrant in respect of breaching a suspended sentence order. I arrived at court and saw my client in the cells. He informed me he was working; I completed the CDS14 ...

  • News

    Inefficient emails

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Emails are now at the point where they are overtaking letters as the preferred form of communication. Emails, traditionally, are more informal and ‘matey’ as well as being far more (though not completely) instantaneous. My pet bugbear is that, with their informality, many senders fail ...

  • News

    Troika’s liberalisation drive ‘threatens profession’

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    European governments are under pressure from the so-called ‘troika’ to rush through reforms that will erode the independence of the legal profession, the Gazette has been told. The reforms include the appointment by governments of non-lawyers to supervise and regulate the profession, with the authority to set fee levels and ...

  • News

    Law firms urged to set pro bono hours target

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    The time has come for a debate on whether firms should set ‘aspirational’ targets for the number of pro bono hours worked by their lawyers and staff, the attorney general’s pro bono envoy has suggested. Michael Napier QC, who is also senior partner at national ...

  • News

    ABS ‘threat’ to in-house legal teams

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    In-house legal teams will be vulnerable to replacement by services run by outsourcing businesses, such as Capita and Serco, once the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is able to license alternative business structures (ABSs).

  • News

    'Sea change’ for county court claims

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    All claims to county courts are to be processed through a central facility in a ‘massive sea change’ designed to slash costs and ­processing times, the Gazette can reveal. From March, solicitors will no longer need to mail claims with a cheque to individual courts, ...

  • News

    Peers target third-party capture

    2011-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Peers debating civil litigation reform have called for a crackdown on the so-called ‘third-party capture’ practice of insurers approaching claimants directly. Four members of the House of Lords tabled amendments on the subject last week during the second reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment ...