Litigation/Dispute Resolution

Funders of collective actions should not be allowed to bring confidential arbitration proceedings against their clients, Walter Merricks – who brought the landmark Mastercard claim – argued last night.

Volume litigation, consolidator law firms and unregulated legal service providers are the focus of a new consumer protection programme launched by the Legal Services Board.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has struck out a challenge to the rules of the Faculty of Advocates, the Scottish Bar, over a restriction on who can instruct barristers.

The “basic principles of agency and delegation” could be used to argue that the Mazur judgment was wrongly decided, a KC and judge has suggested.

The FCA car finance compensation scheme has been “patently been influenced by the profit margins of the lenders”, a report by MPs has found.

A solicitor accused of dishonestly seeking more costs than his client was entitled to claim has been cleared by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The cost of Google adverts for ‘mould claim’ searches continued to surge in the run-up to Awaab’s Law coming into force last week as law firms looked for work.

The number of housing disrepair claims made against local councils has increased almost five-fold this decade but the picture for legal costs is more mixed.

The first chartered legal executive with standalone litigation practice rights could be authorised in six weeks’ time, with around 2,300 expected to apply for them in the next 18 months.

The number of complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service brought by law firms and CMCs has collapsed in the wake of the new case fee.

All third-party funders should join the Association of Litigation Funders while the government decides on the way forward for the sector, the courts minister said this week.

The High Court has expressed surprise that a paralegal did not know more about the restrictions that the reserved legal activities imposed on her work.

A regional costs judge has described how he applied the ruling in Mazur to cut the costs awarded to a law firm in a housing possession case from £3,000 to less than £500.

A law firm representing huge numbers of people with car finance mis-selling claims has accused lenders of “systemic obstruction”.

The Mazur ruling will have no impact on the work of the first regulated AI law firm as the technology is not conducting litigation, its founder has asserted.