Skip to content

Law

Lawyers, eh?

The owner of a leading City law firm linked to millionaire Labour donor Ian Rosenblatt has collapsed into bankruptcy after a run of losses.

RBG Holdings on Monday said it would be winding down in the coming days after its directors failed to appoint administrators. Companies typically fail to appoint administrators when they lack sufficient cash to pay the fees that would be owed to the bankruptcy specialists.

That’s the sort of thing which could, maybe, lead to the idea that they continued to trade while insolvent. An incorrect but useful guide to which is that you’re solvent if you can afford to close down, you’re not if you can’t.

What glorious fun!

Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands giveaway was plunged into fresh controversy on Saturday night after the former Mauritian prime minister who masterminded the deal was interrogated in a money-laundering scandal.

Pravind Jugnauth and members of his family were hauled into the offices of the Mauritian Financial Crimes Commission for questioning on Saturday following a three-hour search of his home.

Police had earlier raided the premises of a close associate of Jugnauth, where they said they found suitcases stuffed with tens of thousands in cash in more than a dozen currencies, Rolex and Cartier watches and UK visas, according to reports. The associate denied the items were his.

No, no, no, of course they’re not his. This is a political set up. Now the other party controls the security services they’re being turned loose on the former government. No, really. Undoubtedly.

We should be handing over territory to a place as crook as that, eh?

Oh. Rightie Ho

Ms Xue is a former Chinese Communist Party official, serving as director general of the department of treaty and law in China’s foreign ministry. She became China’s ambassador to the Netherlands and then to the Association of South-east Asian Nations.
….
One of the international judges who ruled against Britain over the Chagos Islands is a former Chinese government official who backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In 2019, as vice-president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Xue Hanqin ruled that the UK should give the islands to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible”.

Hermer, Starmer etc are acting as if international law is as independent – ahem, ahem – as our own High Court.

Is that a useful assumption?

It is not obvious that the judges are on our side

An Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son will not eat foreign chicken nuggets, The Telegraph can reveal.

An immigration tribunal ruled that it would be “unduly harsh” for the 10-year-old boy to be forced to move to Albania with his father owing to his sensitivity around food.

The sole example provided to the court was his distaste for the “type of chicken nuggets that are available abroad”.

As a result, the judge allowed the father’s appeal against deportation as a breach of his right to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), citing the impact his removal might have on his son.

Of course, judges are supposed to be on the law’s side, not our. But still.

Now, anyone who actually knows about the law (which is different from knowing the law) is welcome to correct me. But judges are selected from serving lawyers. You do your lawyering, you become a KC, if you want to go the judge route you do a bit of deputy recordering and so on.

They don’t have to be these days but more normally from barristers than solicitors.

And here’s the thing. Clearly, a judge who specialises in Admiralty law will be selected from among those barristers who do Admiralty law. Etc etc. Which means that judges on these immigration cases are going to be from places like Matrix Chambers. The home and haunt of very idiot lefties with very extreme views on thigs like ‘uman rights and migration etc.

*Because* we have “progressive” chambers which specialise in certain areas of the law *therefore* we’re getting, in certain areas, progressive judges.

I suggest this might not be optimal.

Bastards, vile, and…..hang on…..

Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Monday launched a bid to shield car loan providers from multibillion-pound payouts in a landmark mis-selling case, after the Treasury warned it could damage Britain’s reputation as a place to do business.

The Treasury has taken the unusual step of seeking permission to intervene in a forthcoming Supreme Court case, amid concerns that banks and other lenders could face a compensation bill costing tens of billions of pounds.

Bastards etc. Except:

In April the Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal brought by car loan providers challenging an October ruling from the Court of Appeal that sided with consumers who complained about “secret” commissions on car loans.

The judgment that it was unlawful for banks to pay a commission to a car dealer without the customer’s informed consent sent shockwaves through the UK banking system and triggered thousands of pounds in compensation payments from lenders FirstRand Bank and Close Brothers.

Not really sure about how terrible that is. But, anyway:

It also argues that if liability is established, then the Treasury would seek to persuade the Supreme Court that “any remedy should be proportionate to the loss actually suffered by the consumer and avoid conferring a windfall”.

Treasury insiders argue that rather than taking sides with the banks against wronged consumers, the government wants to maintain the viability of a finance sector vital for the purchase of both new and second-hand cars.

“If lenders have broken the law then consumers should receive compensation proportionate to the losses they have suffered,” said one Reeves ally.

Umm, yes? Compo should make up for the loss suffered. And no more.

When did we get to a system that didn’t run along those lines? Anyone? Bueller?

We’ve a perfectly good phrase here

Aldi has been defeated by Somerset drinks company Thatchers in a bitter legal battle over a “copycat” cloudy lemon cider.

In a “watershed” ruling from the Court of Appeal, a panel of three judges found that Aldi had infringed trademark rights by designing an own-brand cider that would remind customers of a rival product from Thatchers.

The court said this amounted to “unfair competition”.

Passing off“.

Given that we have the phrase for exactly this we should use it, no?

Yes, but those are not actually court rulings

Not in the usual sense at least they’re not:

The Chagos Islands have been at the centre of a decades-long sovereignty dispute, with multiple international rulings affirming Mauritius’s claim.

In January 2021, the United Nations’ International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that Britain had no legal sovereignty over the islands, while the International Court of Justice ruled that native Chagossians were unlawfully expelled by the UK to make way for a military air base and that the islands should be handed to Mauritius.

They’re, at best, advisories.

Possibly, you know?

The Northern Ireland Troubles Act, introduced by the Tories, stopped Mr Adams and some 400 other Republicans from claiming compensation over their detention in prison in the 1970s.

Labour decided to repeal the law last year after the High Court in Northern Ireland ruled that the legislation was incompatible with human rights laws. Mr Benn said the decision to repeal the law underlined “the Government’s absolute commitment to the Human Rights Act”.

Being committed to human rights is all very well. But being committed to the interpretation of it that has lawyers climbing over all and every decision about anything might not be so good.

As in the other current unforced error:

“The Trump team are sensing a great deal of concern from the GOP caucus in the House and the Senate about the relentless legal maximalism of the UK Government,” Lord Godson told The Telegraph.

The bloke trying to change the law so Gerry Adams gets compo

In front of the Justice Select Committee on Wednesday Lord Hermer refused to say how he was paid for representing Adams in a different case. Nor has he said whether he recused himself from decisions which may benefit his former client.

But this isn’t just one appalling judgment by Starmer’s Government. The whiff of impropriety surrounding the succession of decisions that just so happen to help the clients of his old friends in the legal world has become a stench.

Which law is it that states the best explanation for the behaviour of any organisation is that it’s run by a cabal of its enemies?

Seems like a good test here

Law student suing Cambridge University after failing PhD

Even, a practical test. Win the case and you get your PhD by showing competence.

A law student is suing Cambridge University for discrimination after he failed his PhD, claiming the decision denied him a lucrative job as a barrister.

Jacob Meagher did not pass his final “viva voce” oral examination of his doctoral thesis, meaning he missed out on a place at a set of chambers, the High Court was told.

He is now seeking “substantial damages” from the world-famous institution, arguing he should have been given an alternative way of achieving a PhD.

Although, erm. Not being able to think and speak on your feet might be disqualifying as a barrister?

No, really, we would have got him!

Donald Trump would have been convicted of crimes over his failed attempt to cling to power in 2020 if he had not won the presidential election in 2024, according to the special counsel who investigated him.

Jack Smith’s report detailing his team’s findings about Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday.

That it’s all never going to be subject to actually being tested…..

Tee hee

Under Scots law, Ms Sturgeon can still be called as a witness to the trial regardless of whether or not she is married to Mr Murrell.

While it was previously the case that wives and husbands could refuse to testify against their spouse, the “loophole” was scrapped by the SNP in 2010.

Yes, super

ByteDance plans to spend $7 billion on the chips in 2025, according to reporting from The Information, citing inside sources. If ByteDance follows through, it will become one of the world’s top owners of Nvidia chips, despite U.S. efforts to restrict Chinese companies from buying U.S. AI chips like these.

In 2022, the U.S. announced export restrictions on certain kinds of AI chips to countries, including China, where ByteDance is headquartered. These restrictions have gotten tighter multiple times since.

ByteDance is technically adhering to these restrictions by using a loophole: The company isn’t bringing the chips directly to China and is instead storing them in data centers located in other regions like Southeast Asia, according to The Information’s reporting. This doesn’t technically violate U.S. restrictions.

Snigger. Just stick the chips in a data centre not in China.

Oh. Rightie Ho then….

Immigration judges backed his claim and rejected an appeal by the Home Office against him remaining in the UK. They ruled that it would breach his right to a family life based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and that there was a risk of persecution because of his Kurdish birthright.

The tribunal was told that he was a “reformed” character, that his wife had stood by him over the affair and that his deportation would split the family as she would not be able to go to Turkey with him owing to her responsibility to support her two daughters and two grandchildren in the UK.

That is a significant burden to weigh againt….well, against what?

A Turkish crime boss said to be one of Britain’s biggest drug dealers will not be deported after judges ruled it would breach his human rights, the Telegraph can reveal.

The man, who was jailed for 16 years for plotting to supply heroin across the UK, won the right to remain in the country on the basis that it would breach his human right to a family life, even though he had an extra-marital affair with a woman in Turkey.

Everything is costs and benefits, no? The trick beng to find the balance.

Deportation I would have thought……

Snigger

By tapping two combative ultra-loyalists to run the FBI and the justice department, Donald Trump has sparked fears they will pursue the president-elect’s calls for “revenge” against his political foes and sack officials who Trump demonizes as “deep state” opponents, say ex-justice department prosecutors.

Ooooh, no, no, noooooo.

Don’t do to us what we’ve been doing to them for years now, no, noooooo.

Ahahahaha

He went on to suggest his son was “treated differently” because of his father’s status.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unravelled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”

Even the damn judge couldn’t swallow the deal. Because it tried to contain a resolution of everything he could possibly be charged with, ever, for anything up to that date. A plea deal that had just covered roughly and approximately the things alleged and things connected would almost cerrtainly have sailed through. But everything? Nahh……

A resolution of everything drugs, guns, taxes and tarts could have been achieved. One that covered all of Burisma – whether or not there will be charges there etc – and Ukraine and China and….by dint of pleading guilty to drugs and guns and taxes? Nope.

Jesu, the idiocy

Telling someone with a foreign accent you can’t understand them could be racial harassment, a senior tribunal judge has said.

Commenting on or criticising the way someone from another country or ethnic group speaks could breach employment law, Judge James Tayler said.

Getting lawyers not quite right

A friend went through this (New York firm) decades back:

If you are a young and ambitious lawyer, landing a job at an American law firm in London is the pinnacle of status and pay. But you have to “sell your soul” for it, in the words of Oliver, 27, a newly qualified solicitor in London. US companies are now offering starting salaries of £170,000. In return, staff must work evenings, weekends and on holiday.

These “zillennial” lawyers (aged 26-29) now routinely work more than 70 hours a week in the Square Mile, according to research conducted by the website Legal Cheek. Top US firms pay the best and demand the most from their NQs (newly qualified staff), taking the 11 top spots in the table listing hours worked. Most demanding is Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where young lawyers rack up an average of 67.5 hours, Monday to Friday (an average of 13 hours 23 minutes on every weekday), with weekend working taking their total hours to more than 70 a week. In return, the firm’s starting salary is £170,000. Second is Kirkland & Ellis, demanding an average of 13 hours 3 minutes every weekday and paying starting salaries of £172,000.

Increasingly, top British law firms have the same work ethic. At Linklaters, junior solicitors log more than 60 hours on average (11 hours 39 minutes per day) while at its rival, Freshfields, juniors are reported to be turning in 56.5 hours a week over five days (11 hours 31 minutes per day). These firms offer starting salaries of £150,000.

That’s not working hours. That’s billable hours. Not time at desk, but how many hours – in 6 minute increments – the punters get charged for.

This works both ways. A 30 sec phone call gets billed as 6 minutes. Because that’s the minimum charge. But that chat with the boss about putting nose to grindstone isn’t time at work – because no client is being billed for it.

As laddie said back then, the money’s great, the life not so much.