Litigation/Dispute Resolution

A tribunal has heavily criticised a solicitor who acted for a woman the judge decided did not actually exist, in a bid to stop a property sale, in a case he described as “quite extraordinary”.

A claimant failed to take reasonable steps to serve a claim form in a £572,000 professional negligence action against a law firm, a judge has ruled.

Cardiff’s Capital Law has set up a litigation funding arm and secured backing of up to £50m to finance smaller commercial cases run by other mid-market law firms.

Former clients of SSB Law have welcomed the decision of Novitas Loans to halt any recovery of the loans given to them to pursue cavity wall insulation claims.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has approved an agreed £3.8m payment from unclaimed damages in a collective action to the Access to Justice Foundation.

The Financial Conduct Authority has launched a £1m campaign to tell motor finance customers that they do not need to use a claims management company or law firm.

The High Court has consolidated a negligence claim against a will-writing company with a dispute over the will it drafted, and ordered the company to engage in mediation.

The man who founded now-defunct Stobart Barristers and then bought two well-known criminal law firms, has been cleared of any wrongdoing around his business’s insolvency.

The new costs budgeting ‘lite’ pilots may not save solicitors time or money, it has been claimed – but the deputy head of civil justice insisted that ways to reduce costs have to be tried out.

The High Court has again taken an axe to the claimants’ costs budgets in the ‘Dieselgate’ group litigation, saying the lawyers have not fully learned the lessons from when it happened last year.