The Lord Chancellor’s Department (LCD) has failed to allay trade union concerns over plans to privatise the department’s computing and administrative functions and now faces the likelihood of industrial action. The row is over the Government’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) requirement to tender out all big capital investment projects to the private sector. The two […]
The lid is about to be lifted on the Cayman Islands’ mutual funds industry. Auditors Coopers & Lybrand has been instructed to co-ordinate a survey to find the true size of the Caymans’ fund business. It is thought the Islands are the home to at least 2,000 funds and mutual funds, and mutual fund administrators […]
Dibb Lupton Broomhead is intensifying its work for the action group representing investors who lost money with crashed financial adviser Knight Williams. The firm has recruited leading insolvency practitioner Neil Cooper, partner at accountants Robson Rhodes, and is formulating a strategy to help win compensation for what is thought to be £8 million in losses […]
City firm Theodore Goddard has come top in the Clean City Awards. Organised by the Corporation of London, the awards are designed to encourage businesses to look at how they manage their waste and help make the City a safer, cleaner and more pleasant place. Receiving the award at a Guildhall ceremony, Simon Stubbings, managing […]
SJ Berwin & Co acted for Graduate Appointment
FORMER barrister Quentin Poole has been named as the new managing partner of Birmingham firm Wragge & Co, 14 years after switching to the solicitor’s profession. Poole takes over from Christopher Hughes who returns full-time to the corporate department. Hughes, described by Poole as one of the region’s “hard-hitters”, previously held the post for two […]
The Law Society has strongly supported the Lord Chief Justice’s unprecedented attack on the Home Secretary’s plans for tougher sentences for burglary and violent offences. A spokesman criticised Home Secretary Michael Howard’s move into the preserve of judicial discretion describing it as another step toward a “totalitarian State”. Roger Ede, secretary of the society’s criminal […]
ASHURST Morris Crisp has been granted a temporary reprieve in India after the Court of Justice refused to suspend its licence as injunctive relief in a battle with local lawyers. However, the court admitted the writ petition of the Bombay Lawyers Collective, which claims foreign practitioners, licensed to act only as conduits between clients and […]
RICHARDS Butler has abolished the post of managing partner and appointed an accountant to oversee the running of the firm. The move promotes finance director Chris Schulten to the newly-created job of chief executive, while former head Ken Ollerton, who had worked as managing partner for the past four years, returns to his practice as […]
Three former Brecher & Co property lawyers – two partners and a senior assistant – have joined Mishcon de Reya one week after the merger of Brechers with City firm Nicholson Graham & Jones. Former equity partner Susan Freeman becomes an equity partner with Mishcons and former junior partner Nick Doffman and senior assistant Ian […]
The Bar Council’s decision to allow more contact for witnesses has been challenged by the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct (Aclec). In a letter to the Bar Council Aclec says it has “considerable reservations” about the proposed amendments to the current rules. It adds that the committee “has expressed considerable concern […]
A KEY architect of the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality has accused Law Society president Martin Mears of “ignorant demagoguery”. The Liberal Democrat peer and lawyer Lord Lester, who helped set up the two bodies in the 1970s as a special adviser to home secretary Roy Jenkins, has expressed astonishment at […]