IT IS the disaster scenario. A partner is found to be negligent, and the firm’s other partners – who had nothing to do with the original case – discover their personal assets are liable as compensation. Professional partnerships – particularly the big accountancy firms, but also law firms – have for some time been seeking […]
A doctor who was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving in January 1994 is facing a High Court compensation claim. The action has been launched by three survivors of the accident, in which one person died. Keith Wells, Michelle Thorpe and Kieran Thorpe, suing through his mother Michelle Thorpe, have issued a writ against […]
Jonathan Jeffries is a partner in the corporate recovery group at Pinsent Curtis. The House of Lords has turned the tables on landlords of commercial premises who charge tenants high rents. The recent Park Air Service case gives commercial tenants the ability to avoid over-rented premises through disclaimers in liquidations, whether solvent or insolvent. The […]
Walker v Nice (1999) QBD (Settled out of court) 16 March 1999 Plaintiff: Male, divorced, 31 years old at date of accident; 35 years old at date of settlement. Incident: The plaintiff was injured on 8 September 1994 when his car collided with the defendant’s, who had been driving on the wrong side of the […]
A recent case has, for the first time, forced the courts to consider whether religion should be a decisive factor when placing children with foster parents and how far the wishes of the natural parents should be taken into consideration in respect of their children’s religious up-bringing. An eight-year-old girl, known as “N” and who […]
The professional indemnity saga takes another turn this week when the outcome of the recent ballot of all solicitors is announced. As a supporter of the proposal to permit solicitors to insure through the market, I do not share the views expressed in this column some weeks ago (29 March) by Lord Hunt of Wirral, […]
David Cheyne, head of M&A, Linklaters Andrew Harting, senior associate, Weil Gotshal & Manges Michael Goroff, partner, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy The US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has voted to ban the pooling of interests accounting method for mergers and acquisitions. Pooling allows companies in all-stock transactions to combine books without recording merger-related […]
The annual report of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors for 1997/98 makes depressing reading. In the past five years, the number of complaints averaged 22,764 each year. With 8,764 firms, that was about 2.6 complaints per firm per annum. However, the OSS estimates that there will be 30,000 new complaints this year. That […]
Pinsent Curtis has taken on an in-house lawyer to challenge Eversheds’ national dominance in public sector work. Pinsents has hired chief solicitor Nicholas Dobson from Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council to fill the tailor-made post of head of local government. Top public sector partner Stephen Cirell of Eversheds admits that in the long term, and with […]
The results of a Law Society ballot of its 94,000 members on whether or not to retain the Solicitors’ Indemnity Fund monopoly will be released on The Lawyer’s website today (www.the-lawyer.co.uk) but don’t expect the Law Society to do anything about it. The society is not bound by the ballot, which cost an estimated u35,000.