Courts handling juvenile offenders have been given powers to review lenient sentences in serious fraud cases. New legislation under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act and coming into force last week, also introduces a pilot scheme for the use of electronic tagging in curfew sentencing. Courts will be able to impose long terms of […]
JUDGES deciding personal injury awards will now be able to take into account a greater number of variables including occupation, geographic location and national economic growth. The increased flexibility stems from a revised edition of the ‘Ogden Tables’ produced by a working party of lawyers and actuaries under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Ogden QC. […]
SURREY firm Stevens & Bolton has appointed a new managing partner to mastermind the firm’s development. Commercial property partner Michael Laver says the firm, with offices in Guildford and Farnham, is poised to expand. “We saw the need for commercial expertise earlier than other provincial firms in time to benefit from the boom years at […]
Only a handful of law firms have the ability and resources to chase international project business reports Mary Heaney Only a small number of top international law firms are in the running for the major international project finance projects which are appearing across the globe. The firms which feature in most of the major financings […]
CLIFFORD Chance marketing chief Robert Pay is to join the Stock Exchange. Pay is the third senior figure from the marketing department to leave since last July. Carolyn Griffiths left to train as a barrister, and Michael Belford joined top surveyors Richard Ellis. Pay’s appointment as the exchange’s head of marketing ends a seven-year reign […]
Considerable attention has been paid to the complexities of launching concession based projects. Articles and seminars on the subject have proliferated, and the projects themselves are now appearing in greater numbers. Less public attention has been paid to the premature termination of concessions, though in practice the termination provisions in a concession contract are always […]
Angus Diggle, convicted of attempted rape, hopes to return to work as a solicitor when his one-year ban is up. Diggle, from Lancashire, who spent a year in jail, escaped being struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Tribunal chair Barrie Marsh said that although the matter was serious, Diggle had served his sentence, paid […]
REPORTS that 20,000 claims have been lodged with industrial tribunals by part-time workers seeking backdated pensions payments are likely to be a “conservative estimate” of the total, according to the Department of Employment. A DoE spokeswoman says official figures have not yet been compiled, but it is thought the rush on claims before the New […]
Barrister Andrew Leitch has joined law firm SJ Berwin & Co’s advocacy group. Leitch, who was called to the Bar in 1991, joins from the chambers of Neville Digby in Reading. He is also a part-time lecturer in company law at Holborn College, London. Richard Slowe, head of the advocacy group, says Leitch will re-qualify […]
Reuters’ two-day World Privatisation Conference to be held in London on 6 and 7 March is attracting a lot of interest from law firms. The programme includes a region by region analysis of developments; speakers will include government representatives, as well as investment, finance and legal experts. For further details phone 0171-925 1000.
Except if you’re openly gay. Martin Bowley QC examines the recent case upholding the ban on homosexuals in the military The judgments in the recent gays in the military case (Regina v Ministry of Defence ex parte Smith and others) were delivered on 7 June 1995. Presumably they will be fully reported in due course, […]
Cyril Dixon reports THE CONDUCT of lawyers is to be scrutinised in an extensive review of planning law set up by Labour. Shadow planning minister Keith Vaz is heading a panel which will look at the cause of delays, costs, confusion and anomalies in the system. Vaz says that one of the key areas to […]