For the latest retrenchment in the law of unfair dismissal, look no further than the learned discourse featuring Philip Henson, Head of Employment, at http://bit.ly/uqIweK  

Judiciary call for courts to embrace of information technology Two leading members of the English judiciary, Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger and Mr Justice Vos have both called for the English courts to embrace information technology and increase the pace of reforming the inefficient, old-fashioned, paper based document system. This measure, they say, will [...]

Is the proposal to abolish Unfair Dismissal part of a wish list to Santa Claus? The paucity of detail in the extracts of Mr. Beecroft’s proposal to scrap the concept of unfair dismissal, recently leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, is lamentable. The final paragraph of the extract states that “the downside of the proposal [...]

A CPS press release reports that the first successful prosecution and conviction under the Bribery Act 2010 has taken place. A former magistrates’ court clerk took a bribe of £500 in exchange for turning a blind eye to a road traffic offfence. Under section 11(1), an individual guilty of an offence under section 2 is [...]

One of the consequences of the financial crisis is the growth in disputes against the banks which, at the top-end of the scale, involve claims for vast sums of money. Clients may think that the natural choice would be to turn to the “magic circle” law firms with much of this type of work being [...]

A survey carried out by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators revealed that the UK is the cheapest place in Europe for international arbitration. Surprisingly, 74% of party costs in international arbitrations are legal fees and those fees are 26% greater in the rest of Europe.  Claimants’ costs averaged just over £1.5 million in the UK. [...]

New protection for consumers The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has published its White Paper, “A Better Deal for Consumers”, which sets out the government’s strategy for regulating consumer markets. The government has reviewed its strategy because of the current economic situation and to deal with the changes in the ways in which consumers [...]

On Thursday 22 September 2011, Quentin Bargate, senior partner and Head of our Superyacht Group, sat as an invited panelist on a six person expert panel addressing the key issue, “Foreign Flags and the EU”, hosted by the Cayman Islands Maritime Registry in Monte Carlo. The rest of our Superyacht team also attended the seminar, which was attended by many [...]

Government Drive to Promote Legal Services Abroad The Government has unveiled the Legal Services Action plan to promote London as a global legal hub to foreign businesses. The legal sector in the UK is a national success story. Businesses understand that a judgment from an English court has a certain cachet. The legal services sector [...]

Historically, obtaining a judgment in the domestic courts and enforcing it abroad has been a long and expensive process. Many debtors still assume that they can cross national borders and their liabilities won’t catch up with them. Creditors often find that there are no treaties between countries regarding the reciprocal enforcement of judgments which means [...]