Latest news

A threat to make a former partner of a corrupt solicitor who was part of a £30m mortgage fraud pay £205,000 in damages has been lifted when the High Court struck out a claim by one of the mortgage companies.

A company promoting stamp duty land tax avoidance schemes has been censured for making it look as though the Solicitors Regulation Authority endorsed its activities. Both HM Revenue & Customs and a tax lawyer complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the website of Fiducia Wealth & Tax.

The whiplash reforms could cost claimant lawyers £80m in lost fees a year, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday as it unveiled its final impact assessment of the changes contained in the Civil Liability Bill. It also projected that they would cost claimants £990m in lost compensation and having to pay legal fees out of their damages.

National law firm Laytons has been fined £20,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for using its client account as a banking facility for a European network of law firms, a foreign client and a tax practitioners’ group. Three of the firm’s longest serving partners were also fined.

A Preston law firm has hit back strongly at suggestions by leading holiday company TUI that it may have acted unethically and even illegally in acting on a holiday sickness case that was found to be ‘fundamentally dishonest’.

North Yorkshire County Council has become the latest local authority to set up an alternative business structure (ABS) with the launch of First North Law. It comes as one of the country’s largest ABSs – Enact Conveyancing – has significantly expanded its presence in Yorkshire, creating 160 new jobs.

Legal services marketing giant NAHL is to create a third alternative business structure this year, which will focus on helping injured people navigate small claims if and when the government’s whiplash reforms happen in April 2019. The news comes against the background of its 2017 annual results, which showed revenue up but profit down sharply.

Publication of the Civil Liability Bill yesterday met with a polarised response and a commitment from the chief executives of 26 leading insurance companies to pass on the savings to customers – dismissed as empty promises by claimant solicitors.

The issue of judicial bullying has come up again, with more barristers outlining the behaviour they have faced in court and the Bar Council chairman condemning “bullying or inappropriate treatment” by judges. The leader of the Northern Circuit has advised using informal lines of communication through heads of chambers to handle bullying that is not “egregious”.

Justice Secretary David Gauke today finally published the Civil Liability Bill, which the government said “offered hope” of lower insurance premiums to millions of motorists by reducing the “unacceptably high number of whiplash claims”. The bill also contains changes to the way the personal injury discount rate is calculated.