Raab vows to break barristers’ ‘near-monopoly’ over Crown Court trials August 24, 2022 Justice secretary Dominic Raab is seeking to undermine the barristers’ strike by breaking their “near-monopoly” over crown court trials, government sources told the Daily Mail. As the UK government faces the prospect of an all-out barristers strike from the start of next month, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is weighing up plans to expand the [...]
Solicitors’ watchdog vows to use strike offs instead of fines in sexual misconduct cases August 23, 2022 The UK’s solicitors’ watchdog is set to cease fining lawyers for personal misconduct offences, apart from in exceptional circumstances, with a view to using non-financial sanctions instead. In a statement, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said it is pushing forwards with plans to amend its fining regime, after the UK’s Ministry of Justice (MoJ) upped [...]
Stewarts tops UK law firm pay rankings with partner payouts of £2.7m August 23, 2022 London law firm Stewarts today said its partners will receive payouts of more than £2.7m each – more than partners at any other major UK firm. The London firm said its 21 equity partners will receive payouts of £2.74m each for the financial year ending on 30 April 2022 after the value of its profit-per-equity-partner [...]
Sony faces £5bn lawsuit over claims it ‘ripped off’ millions through PlayStation store August 22, 2022 Sony is set to face a £5bn class-action lawsuit, brought forward on behalf of 8.9m people, over claims it breached competition law by overcharging for digital PlayStation games and in-game purchases. The Japanese video game console maker is being sued by consumer rights campaigner Alex Neill, on behalf of millions of gamers, over its practice [...]
Criminal Barristers vote to escalate strike action over legal aid fees August 22, 2022 Criminal barristers today voted in favour of plans to cancel their bi-weekly court walkouts and run a continuous strike from 5 September onwards. The Criminal Bar Association’s members overwhelmingly backed the decision to strike on an “indefinite basis” on Monday morning. 2273 members backed escalation of strikes by 79.5 per cent, with 11 per cent supporting a continuation [...]
Threat of recession drives City law firm hiring spree August 19, 2022 City law firms are seeking to capitalise on the looming recession by bolstering their M&A and financial restructuring teams. Vacancies for City lawyers specialising in banking, leveraged and real estate finance, capital markets, and derivatives surged 38.7 per cent over the first seven months of 2022, figures from legal sector recruitment firm Tenhaven show. The [...]
Less than 62,000 of UK’s one million trusts registered with HMRC just two weeks before deadline August 19, 2022 Only a tiny proportion of those who own non-taxable trusts have registered them with HM Revenues and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Trust Registration Service (TRS), just weeks before the deadline on 1 September. A total of 61,700 of the UK’s estimated one million trusts were registered with the HMRC service in the first six months of 2022, [...]
City Exclusive – Criminal barristers lured to law firms as strikes set to escalate August 19, 2022 City law firms are making concerted efforts to capitalise on the collapse of the criminal justice system by hiring disgruntled barristers into their firms, recruiters and law firms exclusively told City A.M. Legal sector recruiters said they’ve seen a sharp uptick in law firms approaching them seeking to bolster their teams by hiring criminal [...]
UK government must release details on Rwanda’s human rights record, court rules August 17, 2022 The UK government must publish six out of ten extracts from internal documents relating to Rwanda’s human rights record after the government sought to withhold them from the public, the High Court ruled today. Lord Justice Clive Lewis said the majority of the ten extracts should be made public after the government argued publishing them [...]
Harrods threatens to become first major employer to use agency staff as strikebreakers August 16, 2022 The staffing agency industry’s trade body has hit out at Harrods after the luxury department store threatened to take advantage of new laws allowing it to break strikes using temporary workers. Harrods told its staff it is willing to use temporary workers to keep its shop running after employees at the Knightsbridge shop threatened to [...]