Litigation/Dispute Resolution

The government yesterday said it recognised “an urgent need for legislation” to prevent SLAPPs but would not at this stage commit to a standalone bill.

A circuit judge has made four non-party costs orders against the credit hire arm of AIM-listed Anexo Group, whose customers have to use its law firm, Bond Turner, to recover its costs from insurers.

The legal profession’s reaction to the King’s Speech yesterday focused as much on what is not in the government’s legislative priorities as what is.

A family law firm has had to take legal action against the ex-husband of a client after an associate accidentally sent confidential information about another client to him.

The extension of fixed costs to low-value clinical negligence cases seems likely to be delayed further after it emerged the rule committee did not discuss them last month.

Making a group litigation order would add “unnecessary cost and expense” to already expensive claims from university students over the lack of in-person teaching.

Two significant High Court rulings in which law firms’ billing arrangements did not achieve what they had intended, emphasise the need for reform of the legal framework.

Costs lawyers have become a fundamental part of litigation teams and this needs to be recognised in the guideline hourly rates and with the ability to apply for judicial appointment.

The High Court has refused to sanction the “absurd” and “staggering” £343m in costs put forward by the claimants for just the first third of the diesel emissions group litigation.

A High Court judge has criticised an attack on the professional integrity of a solicitor to an ex-Newcastle United footballer made during the player’s legal action against his former agent.

National law firm Weightmans is to have nearly 50 invoices totalling £3m subjected to a detailed assessment after failing to convince a judge they were interim statute bills.

A High Court judge has refused a request from a defendant in the London Capital & Finance fraud case to use the proceeds of sale of his home to pay his solicitors over £2m.

A High Court judge has allowed a McKenzie Friend to exercise rights of audience in supporting a defendant facing an order that could lead to a jail sentence for contempt being activated.

A fee-earner who has not complied with a court order to return documents taken from his former law firm has been handed a four-month suspended jail sentence for contempt.

Well-known London litigation firm Candey has failed in a bid to strike out an unfair prejudice claim brought by a former partner.