October 2012 Archives

A study in the legal services market by accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed that the top law firms are increasing their dominance in the UK law market. The Law Survey 2012 shows that the top 100 firms now account for almost 50% of total UK law revenue.

The news is even better for the top 10 firms, who are posting significantly better results than all their rivals, and account for 44% of all legal fees billed.

PwC believe that the difference between the top firms and all their rivals lies in their ability to charge premium hourly rates, to bill more hours than their competitors and to keep a tight control on the number of fee earners they recruit.

A loophole in mental health law has been closed by parliament, after it was revealed that the legal process used to detain more than 5,000 patients in England and Wales was flawed.

Under the Mental Health Act 1983, doctors are entitled to detain patients against their will for the protection of either themselves or others. The legal authority to do this is conferred by sections two and three of the Mental Health Act, leading to the phrase 'sectioning', which literally refers to detaining someone under a section.

The sectioning process requires two doctors and an 'approved mental health practitioner' (AMHP) to agree that the use of legal powers is necessary. Approved mental health practitioners are nurses, social workers, occupational therapists or psychologists approved to carry out functions under the Mental Health Act.

Liberal Democrat MP and former care services minister Paul Burstow has spoken out against negligent care providers, saying that in future they should face corporate legal sanctions if they fail in their duty of care to residents.

Mr Burstow was speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday morning after it was revealed that 19 of 51 former patients moved from a negligent care home in Bristol have been flagged again for safeguarding issues.

The Winterbourne View care home in Bristol was engulfed in national controversy after a BBC Panorama investigation revealed shocking abuses of patients with learning difficulties recorded on hidden cameras.

The Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten of Barnes, has come under fire for appointing a law firm with strong links to the BBC as the secretariat in its independent enquiries into alleged sexual abuses conducted by Jimmy Savile when he worked at the Corporation in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Lord Patten has instructed law firm Reed Smith to act as the secretariat for the review into why a Newsnight investigation into Savile was dropped in December last year.

A subsequent investigation by ITV revealed abuse of several women by Savile spanning three decades; since the programme aired the police have been notified of further abuses by almost 300 victims.

The High Court has heard how a couple desperate for a baby were duped into an international fertility scam, which resulted in them being given someone else's baby as their own in exchange for money.

The Nigerian couple, known only as Mr and Mrs S for legal reasons, told the court that they had been lured into paying a Nigerian 'fertility clinic' £6,000 for a special treatment in 2009.

They had been trying unsuccessfully for a baby for some years.

The right to vote is considered a human right, included in article three of the first protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The right to vote in the UK has existed since King Henry VI of England established that male property owners worth over forty shillings were entitled to vote in a county back in 1432.

Since then the right of suffrage (right to vote) has been extended, most notably in 1918 when women who helped in the war effort were added to the franchise, and again in 1928 when women's right to vote was made equal to those of men, and property restrictions were removed.

The UK Government has decided it will implement legal reforms to allow American-style 'plea bargaining' to be introduced into the UK legal system.

The proposed Deferred Prosecution Agreements are designed to tackle economic crimes including fraud, which is thought to cost the UK Economy a staggering £38bn every year.

The proposals come in the wake of other measures to tackle economic crime including the Bribery Act 2010.

A survey by Thompson Reuters Sweet & Maxwell has revealed that as many as 77% of law firms do not think that private equity is an 'appropriate' source of funding for their businesses.

The market for the provision of legal services has been altered dramatically by the implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007, known as Tesco Law, which has opened up the industry to investment from non-legal businesses.

The legal services market is worth £25bn each year; however, the anticipation that private investors would rush into the market has proved wrong, as many major players have reacted slowly to the changes and law firms have shown reluctance to accept outside investment.

Tax avoidance is the news of the moment and online auction site eBay has become the latest in a string of major corporations exposed for paying too little tax.

Last week coffee chain Starbucks was in the news for reportedly paying just £8.6m in tax on revenues of some £3bn since 1998.

Prior to this story, Google, Amazon, Vodafone and others have been in the news charged with paying too little tax at a time when the exchequer is struggling to raise funds.

Last week the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) confirmed that a plan to cull thousands of badgers will go ahead, despite mounting opposition and concerns over the cost of the operation.

Now the Badger Trust has mounted a last-ditch legal challenge in an attempt to block the policy and save the lives of thousands of badgers.

More than 150,000 people have signed a petition in a bid to reverse the policy, a move that seemed to have been effective as the Government cancelled plans for a press conference last week amid rumours that the Government could perform a policy u-turn.

The governments of Channel Islands Guernsey and Jersey are to legislate to restrict vulture funds from accessing the islands' courts.

The practice involves fund managers suing poor countries to recover bad debt.

'Vulture funds' operate in a market known as 'distressed debt' by investors. They buy the debts of poor countries at a low rate and then use courts in tax havens like Guernsey and Jersey to sue the developing countr y for amounts up to 100 times the debt value.

Companies who offer competitions with prizes that cost money to claim are breaking EU law according to a judgment delivered yesterday in a test case brought by the Office of Fair Trading, reports The Independent.

The Office of Fair Trading took legal action against company Purely Creative and four other companies for competitions run in newspapers and through the post.

The case went to the Court of Appeal which then referred it on to the European Court of Justice to determine whether the competitions breached EU law included in the Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices in the Internal Market and Amending Directives.

The Prime Minister has announced that the Government will legislate to oblige energy suppliers to give their customers the lowest prices possible in a bid to drive down prices, reports Reuters.

The announcement comes after several of the main energy companies announced that they would raise prices in the next month or so.

Scottish Power announced this week that prices will rise up to 8.7%, whilst British Gas will raise their prices by 6% and npower 8.8%. SSE announced a 9% price hike in August, which came into effect this week.

The UK may jeopardise its intelligence-sharing with the United States if it fails to implement laws that would allow some security cases to be heard in closed courts, according to the independent reviewer of intelligence legislation, David Anderson QC.

Mr Anderson was addressing the Joint Human Rights Committee yesterday, which is taking evidence on proposals included in the Justice and Security Bill.

The bill is seeking to amend the law to allow cases that include highly sensitive intelligence information to be heard in closed courts. Litigants in such cases would need to be represented by security-vetted advocates in new 'closed material proceedings'.

A six-year study conducted by independent charity the UK Drug Policy Commission has concluded that drugs law needs 'wholesale review', reports The Daily Telegraph.

The study was conducted by Professor Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland in the USA and Alex Stevens of the University of Kent and was designed to assess the evidence relating to the UK drug problem and the impact of current UK drug policies.

Its conclusions present the Government with the clearest evidence yet that the current UK drug policy, and that of other countries studied, is largely ineffective and has little bearing on the number of people who use drugs or the number of those that go on to become dependent.

A report by watchdog Consumer Focus Wales has highlighted the suffering of the thousands of people who live permanently in mobile homes, reports the BBC.

The report, entitled 'Park Life' uncovers the unscrupulous, intimidating and sometimes criminal behaviour of some site landlords, and calls for legal reform from the Welsh Assembly.

There are 3,500 mobile homes in Wales, which house around 5,000 citizens on caravan sites. There are 92 such sites in the country, with concentrations in Powys, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.

Employment lawyers have warned the Government against rushing in proposals for a new form of employment contract, which would allow employees to 'trade in' certain employment rights in return for a stake in the companies they work for.

The so-called 'owner-employee contracts' or 'rights for shares' contracts were announced by chancellor George Osborne at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham last week.

Mr Osborne hopes that the new contract, due to be launched in time for April 2013, will incentivise staff by linking their fortunes more closely to that of their employer.

The Home Secretary Theresa May has confirmed that the Coalition plans to use its veto to avoid implementing 130 new European Union legal measures relating to law and order.

The 'opt out' was negotiated by Ireland and the UK during negotiations on the Treaty of Lisbon and covers EU policies on asylum, visas and immigration, as well as the ability to opt-in or opt-out of any policies relating to justice or home affairs.

The opt-out effectively means that the UK has to choose to accept all 130 law and order measures agreed before the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect in 2009, or to opt-out of all of them.

The Director of Public Prosecution Kier Starmer has announced a review into the law governing the use of social media in the light of a number of high-profile prosecutions and lengthy sentencing of offenders.

The most recent case concerned that of Matthew Woods, 20, who was jailed at Chorley Magistrates' Court for 12 weeks for posting highly distasteful and offensive posts about the missing 5-year-old April Jones.

Mr Woods took to Facebook to make a string of comments about April Jones and missing child Madeleine McCann last Saturday evening. The posts were reported to police, who arrested him 'for his own safety' after a large group of people gathered at his home to remonstrate with him.

The comedian Freddie Starr failed in an attempt to prevent newspapers from broadcasting allegations against him, which appeared in the news last week.

Mr Starr stands accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl, Karin Ward, in the dressing room of TV presenter Jimmy Savile in the 1970s.

Mr Savile, who died last year, is currently the subject of a police investigation into claims that he committed numerous sexual offences against young girls during the sixties, seventies and eighties.

The UK Supreme Court has heard that the Welsh Government exceeded its devolved powers by proposin g a bill to reform local government bye-laws, reports the BBC.

The bill is the first piece of legislation proposed by the assembly since a referendum on devolution last year resulted in it being granted law-making powers over 20 areas.

Under the new arrangement the assembly does not need approval from the UK Government at Westminster to legislate in these areas.

David Cameron told Conservative conference delegates that the Tories will legislate to defend homeowners, who he believes are ignored by the law when defending their property from burglars.

Mr Cameron was speaking in the wake of a string of cases in recent years in which homeowners have been prosecuted after attacking burglars during raids on their property.

He branded burglary a 'violent crime' and pledged to allow victims to use necessary force to protect themselves.

Birds are still dying as a result of lead used in shotgun pellets, despite a change in the law to limit its impact, reports The Independent.

A study of 300 waterfowl sampled at four sites around Britain in 2010-11 revealed that 34% had elevated levels of lead in their blood.

The study is published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.

The French insurance company Axa has spoken out against plans by its rivals to branch into offering legal services as part of their range of products.

Motor insurance firms and other businesses are now free to apply to sell legal services following on from changes brought in by the Legal Services Act 2007, which allows non-law businesses to offer legal services for the first time.

The news comes as Direct Line, which is launching on the London Stock Exchange this week, also prepare to announce that they will soon apply to sell legal services.

The new health minister Jeremy Hunt has spoken out in support of a reduction to the legal time-limit on abortions on the eve of the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, which started yesterday.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Hunt said that after reviewing the evidence he felt that a reduction to 12 weeks from the current 24-week legal-limit would be justified.

Mr Hunt's views are supported by women's minister Maria Miller, who supports a 20-week limit.

British businessman Karl Watkins has failed for a second time in his attempts to launch a private prosecution against two terror suspects due for extradition to the United States.

It is said the private prosecutions are designed to entangle the pair in a legal battle over here to further delay their extradition.

Babar Ahmad and Syed Ahsan have been charged in America with providing material to support terrorism, conspiring to kill Unites States citizens and money laundering.

Confectionary giant Cadbury has won a High Court legal battle against rivals Nestlé for the right to prevent other confectioners from copying its distinctive purple wrapping.

Cadbury first used the purple colour on its Dairy Milk wrapper in 1914, as a tribute to the late Queen Victoria.

They first applied to the Intellectual Property Office to register Pantone 2865c, the specific purple hue, back in 2004.

A Welshman who spent years living in Australia before he was extradited back to Britain stands accused at Kingston Crown Court of child abuse dating back to the 1940s.

As the first charges relates to an incident 62 years ago it is believed to be one of the oldest criminal cases in British legal history.

Reginald Davies, 78 and a former serviceman and miner, is accused of 16 offences against four children between 1949 and 1973. The court heard how Mr Davies is accused of conducting an 'entrenched pattern of sustained sexual abuse'.

Gay men prosecuted and convicted under pre-1967 anti-homosexuality laws have won the right to have the convictions wiped from their criminal records via a new law, which came into force yesterday.

The new law is included in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Under chapter four, part five of the Act (sections 92-101) the Home Secretary is granted the power to disregard certain convictions, which include cautions, warnings and reprimands for decriminalised sexual offences.

The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 was given royal assent back in May 2012, but these provisions only came into effect on 1 October.

Teachers yesterday became the first group of people in Britain to be protected by a new law, which affords them anonymity if they are accused of a criminal offence until they are formally charged.

The new law, included in the Education Act 2011, protects teachers from accusations made by pupils or on behalf of pupils at the school at which they teach.

The provision is included in section 13 of the Act, which states that "no matter relating to the person is to be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify the person as the teacher".

The UK Government has announced that it will support Scotland to introduce a minimum price per unit for alcohol, as its policy comes under a legal challenge from the Scotch Whisky Association.

The SNP-led Scottish Parliament announced this year that it will introduce a 50p per unit rate on alcohol sales north of the border, in a bid to tackle binge drinking and the health and social consequences of excessive alcohol consumption.

The introduction of the policy is based on work conducted by the University of Sheffield and data from the WHO which shows that even small increases in the price of alcohol can have large effects on outcomes such as the number of deaths related to cirrhosis of the liver.

A new law comes into force today, which will effectively outlaw the practice of clamping vehicles parked on private land.

The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 contains in its schedule four new regulations designed to protect vehicle owners from exorbitant fees to release privately applied clamps.

The new law will come into effect today in England and in Wales. Clamping and towing away on private land has been outlawed in Scotland for 20 years. Northern Ireland will see no legal change.