ZAIWALLA & Company senior partner Sarosh Zaiwalla is being sued by City firm Frere Cholmeley Bischoff over claims he owes more than £11,000 in fees for work on his divorce proceedings. But Zaiwalla says he intends to defend the action by claiming Freres ran up a “huge” bill of more than £21,000 for work which […]
LORD ACKNER has tabled two amendments to the Lord Chancellor’s conditional fee proposals in an eleventh hour attempt to alter regulations which he claims will lay clients open to exploitation. His amendments come as the Bar Council is also voicing “profound doubts” about the scheme. Lord Mackay’s Conditional Fee Agreements Order, laid before Parliament shortly […]
DELEGATE fees for this year’s Law Society conference are set to be slashed following a sponsorship deal between Chancery Lane and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The deal, worth £60,000, means registration fees will be cut to a maximum of £160, compared to about £200 last year. The society hopes to build up delegate numbers […]
Creditors of Kwelm, the biggest ever insurance industry collapse, are due to meet in London on 9 June. Kwelm, a group of five insolvent underwriting businesses once owned by London United Investments, collapsed owing an estimated $10 billion. The group specialised in underwriting mainly US risks, particularly in the professional indemnity, pollution and health hazard […]
The main benefit from computerisation comes through the change in human behaviour which will result. People learn new skills, adopt new attitudes and make different – and better – use of their own resources of time, energy and commitment. The installation of technology is the means of enabling and requiring those changes to take place. […]
Roger Pearson reports on a Court of Appeal ruling regarding sovereign immunity to UK legal proceedings The procedural way has been paved for a major international piece of litigation against the government of Kuwait involving allegations of torture. Papers in the case, in which a former Kuwaiti airforce officer claims he was tortured by members […]
PETER ALLEN JOHN HENRY, 49, admitted 1973, practised as Henry & Company, Swindon, Wiltshire, struck off. Allegations substantiated he was jailed for 18 months after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud. He was said to have certified authenticity of false documents and to have committed perjury in connection with the affairs of a client whose […]
John Malpas Professional negligence expert Professor Anthony Dugdale is to deliver the fourth in a series of lectures at Hardwicke Building chambers. And there are still a few seats left for the lecture, titled ‘Allocating responsibility for the consequences of complex decisions: some reflections on the BBL (Banque Bruxelles Lambert) decision’, in McGeagh Hall, Gray’s […]
City firm Denton Hall has sponsored a new environmental law and management group at London’s Imperial College. John Salter, head of the firm’s environmental law group, says the arrangement will enable Denton Hall to keep up with the “cutting edge” of environmental research. “Lawyers need to understand the scientific options, as well as the legal […]
LONDON solicitor Hemamali Graham has been hit by another writ from a former client who claims she is holding US$95,000 and his passport, allegedly lodged with her last year in support of a visa application. Graham, who was recently sentenced to six months imprisonment after being successfully convicted of attempting to obtain property by deception, […]
BOODLE Hatfield partner Chris Putt has passed a transfer test to qualify as a German rechtsanwalt. He is believed to be the only English solicitor currently practising in central London to hold the dual qualification. Formerly a lawyer with German practice Sigle Loose Schmidt-Diemitz & Partners, Putt worked in Germany from 1992 to 1993 before […]
THE TWO major US firms believed to be involved in merger talks have issued conflicting statements about the future of the deal. Coudert Brothers and New York’s Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon have for some time been rumoured to be discussing the possibility of linking up. However, while Coudert partners have received a memorandum […]