By Mark P Goodman, Jeffrey S Jacobson, John S Kiernan, Maura K Monaghan and Erica S Weisgerber The Supreme Court ruled unanimously last week, in Mississippi v AU Optronics Corp, No. 12-1036 (2014), that state attorney-general lawsuits seeking restitution for damaged consumers cannot be removed to federal court as ‘mass actions’ under the Class Action […]
Ah January, the time to take a punt at something new. As in-house lawyers across the globe write their 2014 tick-list, nowhere does it seem more fitting to flip the proverbial gambling chip than at online betting site Betfair. So here we go – Betfair’s legal director Justin Hubble has left the gambling company just […]
The publication in November 2012 of the Resource Guide to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), jointly released by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was followed by a mixed, but by no means insignificant, year in terms of the number of resolutions and size of recoveries, […]
By Kate Macmillen The High Court in England is allowing British residents to sue Google in England for misuse of private information and breach of its duties under the Data Protection Act 1998. In the important decision this month (Vidal-Hall & Others and Google Inc), highly experienced privacy judge Mr Justice Tugendhat rejected Google’s argument […]
The final attempt to block government plans for the construction of the proposed £50bn High Speed 2 (HS2) railway through the courts has been thrown out at the Supreme Court. Landmark Chambers’ Tim Mould QC and James Maurici QC batted off the joined judicial review appeal brought by the HS2 Action Alliance, Heathrow Hub Ltd […]
In January 2014, a Shoosmiths client was served with a health and safety improvement notice after failing to provide its local council with a written scheme of examination and examination reports concerning a coffee machine. This was held to be a breach of the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000, the main regulations governing the duties […]
By Paul Kirkpatrick Choosing and including the correct type of jurisdiction clause in a contract is important. We consider the case of Conductive Inkjet Technology Ltd and Uni-Pixel Displays Inc [2013] EWHC 2968 (Ch), where the parties could not agree on a jurisdiction clause and the contract was deemed to have been made in two […]
Wragge & Co has been named in lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) charity Stonewall’s Workplace Equality List, which ranks the best employers for LGB equality. After three years of participation, Wragge & Co is ranked 178th overall. The firm was the 16th highest ranking law firm in the index and, having risen 84 places, was one of […]
Another reduction in the lifetime allowance, scheduled for April 2014, means another round of protections. The forthcoming reduction in the lifetime allowance (LTA) will mean that people who have planned their retirement savings by reference to the current £1.5m LTA will need some form of transitional protection in recognition of that planning. December 2012 saw […]
The US Safe Harbor framework was developed in 2000 by the US Department of Commerce in collaboration with the European Commission (EC) to provide an adequate level of protection for EU businesses that transfer personal data to the US companies so as to enable them to comply with the data export requirements of the EU […]
Wragge & Co has announced that Quentin Poole and Peter Thorne have been recognised in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 List for 2014. The list celebrates 100 innovative and inspirational legal professionals. Senior partner Poole was one of 13 people named in the management category, in which individuals are picked out for leading the way in a rapidly changing legal market. Poole […]
In an unexpected and dramatic change of policy, the government has decided that a price cap should be introduced for payday loans. In announcing this move, chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said: ‘We have created a powerful new consumer regulator to regulate the payday lending industry and now we’re asking them to set a cap on […]