Last July we wrote this article about three recent cases of identity fraud in property sales. In each case a fraudster impersonated the vendor and then absconded with the proceeds paid by the would-be purchasers, leaving the latter to try and sue either their solicitors or the ones acting for the fraudster.
Continue ReadingIf you are a director of a limited company in the UK, then you owe a wide range of duties to that company. Breaches of duty can give rise to personal liability and, in some cases, criminal sanctions so a proper understanding of your duties and responsibilities is essential.
Often, a director will be ignorant of his or her responsibilities (or some of them). Sometimes, a director will also be a shareholder and/or employee of the company and this can lead to confusion as to how the director is to exercise his or her powers. Both of these situations can lead to serious problems if they result in breaches of the director’s duties, whether those breaches are deliberate or not.
Continue ReadingFor the first time in contested proceedings since the law came into force in 2011, a commercial organisation has been convicted of failing to prevent bribery under section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010.
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Escalate, Bermans ground-breaking commercial dispute resolution process for SMEs, has been named ‘Innovation of the Year’ at this year’s British Accountancy Awards.
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Article by Andrew Koffman, Litigation Partner
1 October 1987, a typical grey autumn day in Manchester, a far cry from the hurricane-strength winds that buffeted Britain exactly 2 weeks later. But a big day for me; after 6 years of study and training, I was finally admitted as a solicitor. I had a moderately exciting morning serving a search order on a defendant although the location (a block of multi-storey flats) was about as unglamorous as it could get!
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The Law Gazette recently shared this article titled ‘Low-cost Manchester mediation pilot aims to ‘fill a gap’ which discusses a new initiative involving the launch of new a pilot scheme encouraging mediation as a less costly way of resolving civil disputes.
Nick Harvey Partner and Head of Litigation, comments on this recent article, whilst discussing Bermans new dispute resolution product – Escalate.
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In February we shared this article which discussed recovering costs lost in legal disputes.
Lord Justice Jackson has now published his review of civil litigation costs.
A regime of “fixed recoverable costs” had been expected for all civil claims up to £250,000 in value, with a table setting out how much the winner could recover from the loser towards their costs. This would have had a major impact on the economics of resolving disputes in court.
In fact the recommendations are somewhat diluted and more flexible. He has proposed the following.
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You buy (or think you buy) a vacant investment property. You complete the purchase and all goes smoothly until you get a visit from someone who says he is the owner and that he never sold you anything…
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You are about to sue a customer for unpaid invoices, or a supplier for faulty goods or services – or maybe they are suing you. The case will be disputed.
You are confident you will win but you need to know if you can recover your legal costs.
Of course, you also need to know the position on costs should you lose the case.
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Despite the end of the agreed term lease, tenants of business premises have the right to remain in occupation of the premises, and the right to apply to the Court (if necessary) for the grant of a new lease.
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