The Office of Fair Trading has reaffirmed its position condemning the QC system as distorting competition and not being in the best interests of consumers. The announcement has been made in response to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer’s consultation on the future of the silk system. The OFT questions whether it is right that the […]
Beatrice Mtetwa, the Zimbabwe lawyer currently acting to prevent the closure of the country’s last independent newspaper, has been brutally attacked by police just days before her court hearing. Mtetwa, who also represented The Guardian reporter Andy Meldrum when he was illegally deported by the Mugabe regime, has been advising The Daily News, which was […]
The Bar Council is consulting all 14,000 barristers practising in England and Wales on how it should lobby Parliament on retaining the silk status. A draft submission has been sent to all heads of chambers and counsel are to respond by 30 October. Ministers are due to respond to a consultation paper on the question […]
Clifford Chance’s global head of anti-trust Steve Newborn has defected to the Washington office of Weil Gotshal & Manages taking a team of three partners with him. Newborn, one of Clifford Chance’s last remaining US super-pointers, moves to Weil Gotshal with James Egan, John Scribner and Laura Wilkinson. Newborn, who will become co-head of Weil’s […]
Russell Jones & Walker yesterday settled its employment dispute with the UK’s second largest union, the GMB. On 12 May this year, the GMB lodged an application with the Leeds Employment Tribunal, claiming that the firm, well known for its union clientele, failed to comply with section 188 of the Trade Union Relations Act. It […]
Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith has drafted in Reynolds Porter Chamberlain partner David Hooper, the lawyer who acted for John Major in relation to the Edwina Currie affair, to advise on ‘Betsygate’.Duncan Smith has already made clear that he would take legal action against the BBC, which first broke the story surrounding his wife […]
Dechert has lost highly rated corporate insurance partner David Whear to Norton Rose. Senior associate Ashley Prebble will also move across to Norton Rose, leaving Dechert’s London office depleted in this area. Whear is a major boost to Norton Rose’s Lloyd’s practice, led by Cheryl Ronaldson, as well as bringing wider expertise. His clients at […]
Leading Indian firm Amarchand Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co has been admitted to the Lex Mundi network. Amarchand Mangaldas will be the exclusive Lex Mundi law firm for India. The firm, which has offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Calcutta and Ahmedabad, has corporate, commercial, project finance and energy law capability. Lex Mundi […]
Brigitte Chandler, a leading industrial disease lawyer, has moved her practice from Thring Townsend to another south of England firm, Charles Lucas & Marshall (CLM). Over 28 years with her previous firm, at which she was a partner, Chandler has won tens of millions of pounds on behalf of clients, principally in cases involving asbestos […]
So the Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas/OK! Magazine v Hello! damages judgment is out. But if you’re scratching your heads thinking, “Why haven’t I seen this yet?”, this is because, for some reason, Mr Justice Lindsay still hasn’t handed it down and isn’t likely to for another two or three weeks. As most earth dwellers […]
Barristers warned against the prospect of “political placemen” on the creation of a new judicial watchdog at the Bar Council Annual Conference this weekend. In his conference speech, chairman of the Bar Council Matthias Kelly QC said that the bar was “watching like hawks” to ensure that the new Judicial Appointments Commission was free from […]
Thousands of destitute Indian Ocean islanders claiming compensation for being evicted from their homes by the UK Government more than 30 years ago lost their claims for compensation in the High Court last week following a three-year legal battle. The case concerned the forced removal by the Government of around 2,000 islanders from the group […]