Four Seasons Hotel £23m overspend leads to negligence claim against Irish firm Irish firm McCann Fitzgerald is being sued by the Bank of Scotland (BOS) for negligence over a conflict of interest. The case rests on advice given by McCanns to a group of banks that financed the development of Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel.BOS has […]
As if Enron wasn’t bad enough, last week’s ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) came as yet another blow to the cause of accountancy-tied law firms.The ECJ’s decision, which upheld the Dutch Bar’s ban on multidisciplinary partnerships (MDPs), was the culmination of years of litigation. That litigation was sparked by Andersen Legal and […]
Tulkinghorn does not claim to completely understand the criteria used by companies in the process of selecting their external legal advisers, but this little tale has left him totally bemused.Law firms are forever being told by their clients to justify their continued instruction on the basis of cost, quality of advice, locality, specialist knowledge and […]
Stephenson Harwood (David Cuckson) advised the Newmount consortium on a £22m schools PFI project with Dudley Council. Devonshires (Paul Buckland) advised the council. Pinsent Curtis Biddle (Kate Peacock) advised the Royal Bank of Scotland, which financed the consortium. Maxwell Batley (Orla Sullivan) advised Hermes Property Asset Management on the sale of a freehold retail block […]
Asbestos poisoning claimants have suffered a series of setbacks recently. Adrian Budgen reports on how the legal system is letting down the victims Earlier this month, Prime Minister Tony Blair summed up the feelings of hundreds of asbestos claimants by saying that December’s Appeal Court ruling in the Fairchild case was “seen as an injustice”.For […]
The rise of PI ‘specialists’ seemed to spell doom for the friendly neighbourhood personal injury practitioner. But Keith Miles discovers that the lawyers were just biding their time If you casually scan the internet looking for articles on conditional fee arrangements (CFAs) or the latest pronouncement on Callery v Gray, as I often do, you […]
Enron Corporation’s general counsel James Derrick Jr is to retire from the company at the beginning of March Derrick, who joined the energy trader in 1991 and became executive vice-president in 1999, will be succeeded by current deputy general counsel Robert Walls Jr. His departure means that he will not see the disgraced company through […]
Most stars hoping to sue a newspaper would settle on the fiercely independent media and entertainment firm Schilling & Lom. But as Naomi Rovnick reports, there’s a queue Apart from possibly a child, what do pregnant model and actress Liz Hurley and Hollywood producer and alleged father of her child Steve Bing have in common? […]
Cloisters Chambers last week won the first case under the Human Rights Act (HRA) in the High Court relating to school admissions The controversial ruling overturned a previous local authority decision which barred the 11-year-old daughter of a strict Muslim family from a single sex school. Previous challenges to schools admissions under the HRA have […]
The eyes of airlines, passengers and lawyers alike are on a number of test cases concerned with whether flying has caused deep vein thrombosis. Sally Roberts reports On 31 January 2002, a group of airline travellers claiming to have suffered from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after flying was given the all-clear to proceed with its […]
All personal injury lawyers, both claimant and defendant, have horror stories to tell about Lord Woolf’s reforms There was the judge who said that he could decide the claim for care in a million-pound case without any expert evidence; there was the selection as joint experts of experts known to be claimant or defendant-orientated; then […]
The unresolved issue of when an applicant can apply to judicially review a planning decision of a local authority will be put before the House of Lords on 4 March Judicial reviews (JRs) are currently a hot topic because from 4 March, JR applicants will be subject to a new pre-action protocol. Matters such as […]