Sir James Goldsmith is heading for a High Court libel confrontation with Euro MP Glyn Ford. Sir James is seeking damages from Ford over a piece headed “Today your love, tomorrow the world” which appeared in Tribune at the beginning of the month and another piece headed “Fears over nasty link to Sir James” which […]
The Australian courts continue to take the lead in updating the nature of the duty of care which directors owe to their companies. Last year, the New South Wales Court of Appeal in Daniels v AWA (1995) displaced early English law formulations of the scope of directors’ duties. These required directors to exercise a level […]
A major test case, which could extend the liability of industry to include work-induced lung diseases, is now in progress before a High Court judge in Wales and is expected to go on well into next year with further sittings in Sheffield and London. The action has been mounted by a group of eight former […]
Ravinder Singh Chahal is a freelance journalist. As we approach the end of the century, the industrial age is fast being replaced by an age dominated by information technology. More firms are becoming IT-literate through the use of online services, World Wide Web sites, networked systems and even video-conferencing; small wonder then, that it is […]
Ian Salter, associate at Burges Salmon, has gained a double honour by being elected a legal associate of the Royal Town Planning Institute and joining the Law Society’s panel of recommended planning experts.
A senior London university lecturer commissioned by the Government to examine the highly adversarial construction industry has accused lawyers of preferring courtroom battles to alternative dispute resolution. Nicholas Gould, a senior lecturer in Westminster University’s Construction, Housing and Surveying department, says that lawyers often take disputes out of their clients’ hands. This, he claims, can […]
Accountants are being warned to diversify to meet the growing competitive threat from lawyers and other professionals. A report by the Institute of Chartered Accountants 2005 working party predicts that audit work income will continue to fall with new technology and that the big six firms could become a “big five” or even a “big […]
THE CPS is embroiled in angry exchanges with the BBC over its planned screening of a documentary on the service this Wednesday. The programme, episode two of The Verdict series, has been widely trailed by the BBC, which promises a hard-hitting expose of the service. But, as The Lawyer went to press, director of public […]
Freshfields has been appointed as the legal adviser to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand for phase one of the privatisation of its thermal power plants. Shares in the privatised power companies are expected to be floated initially on the Thai stock market in 1997. Freshfields will be coordinating the work from its office in […]
Lawyers acting for Invesco in its record-breaking $1.6bn merger with US fund manager AIM Management Group had a week to find a suitable offshore tax haven to issue bonds to help finance the deal. “We eventually came up with the Isle of Man’s new limited liability company legislation,” said Freshfield’s lead partner Lois Moore. “We […]
There is a well-known belief in the fraternity of spin doctors, media consultants, publicity gurus and other twisters and turners of fact that if you tell a half-truth or downright lie, the more often you say it, the more people will believe it. The bigger the untruth, the greater the sincerity with which it must […]
Blake Lapthorn acted for Carisbrooke Shipping in connection with the admission of its shares to the Alternative Investment Market and a placing and open offer which raised £2 million.