Finance

The High Court has ruled that a partner in a law firm who paid himself £16,500 after he had left the firm and was “effectively competing with it” breached his director’s duties.

A “disastrous IT failure” suffered by a law firm’s biggest client tipped it over the edge into administration and a pre-pack sale to fast-growing national firm Taylor Rose TTKW.

A former partner of a London firm that went into liquidation has lost his bid to strike out Barclays Bank’s claim to enforce a guarantee he provided to cover a loan and overdraft.

Knights Group – the Staffordshire-based law firm that listed in June – has secured bank funding to support its strategy to complete at least three acquisitions by April 2020.

A client who received a mistaken payment of £177,000 from a law firm and only paid back £144,000 has failed to overturn a judgment in default.

A personal injury law firm has lost its appeal against a High Court ruling that dismissed its £4.5m claim over referrals from an insurer that did not materialise.

A QC fined more than £1m for the late payment of both income and inheritance tax over several years has had the sanction reduced by 80%.

Insolvencies in the legal sector are set to double this year if trends seen in the first quarter of 2018 continue, indicating a possible downturn in the fortunes of law firms, it has been claimed. The figures also indicate that law firms may be waiting too long before seeking help.

The risk of solicitors being landed with hefty VAT bills for electronic property searches has become a reality for at least one law firm, which has now received a demand from HM Revenue & Customs for tens of thousands of pounds. It has heightened the call for the tax treatment of postal and electronic searches to be made consistent.

A payment processor has taken the place of conveyancers in handling the finances on completion day in what has been claimed to be the UK’s first fully digital mortgage settlement. It could spell the end to clients waiting with the removal van in the afternoon for money to be transferred between lawyers.