‘Call it the Great Recession, the Great Reset, or whatever, the world palpably shook in September 2008 and the repercussions are still very much with us.’ Bruce MacEwen wrote the above in his 2013 book Growth is Dead, and while changes have been made, much of it still rings true today – including for law …
Continue reading “Guest post: Change is neither good nor bad: It is”
A caricature may reveal a truth… ‘Why, if there is all the talk of change, is change so slow?’ One might be forgiven for thinking that there is rather too much talk of change in the legal profession and perhaps rather less evidence of it happening. It is not easy to see the wood from …
A direct consequence of the government’s decision in May not to make any major changes to the regulatory framework for legal services is that it simultaneously fired the starting gun for the race to introduce major changes to the regulatory framework for legal services.
Last week, the Home Secretary announced that, with all party agreement, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill – (DRIP for short) – would be introduced into Parliament. Much of that is covered in the previous post of 10th July. Since then, criticism has mounted in relation to the late introduction of the Bill prior …
Continue reading “Guest post: DRIP – a torrent of mass surveillance seems more likely”
Lady Butler Sloss, a former and eminent senior judge, with significant experience through a child abuse inquiry (Cleveland) of matters of child protection has been appointed to lead an independent inquiry into historical child abuse. Interestingly, she relinquished the Diana inquest when forced to have a jury trial. The Telegraph story at the time reported: ‘These …
Continue reading “Guest post: A few thoughts on the Butler Sloss controversy”
Introducing the annual report for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the last financial year David Green, CB QC, director of the SFO had this to say: ‘Since I took up post in April 2012, we have sharpened the strategic focus of the SFO on the casework for which the Roskill model was designed and intended. This …
Dennis Kerrison and Miltiades Papachristos were found guilty [on Wednesday 18 June] at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to commit corruption. In a nutshell, that they gave or agreed to give corrupt payments to public officials and other agents of the Government of Indonesia as inducements to secure, or as rewards for having secured, contracts …
In front of the Commons Business committee last week, Ian Read, chairman and chief executive of Pfizer, made two points in relation to Pfizer’s commitments, assuming it were to succeed in acquiring the Anglo-Swedish drug manufacturer AstraZeneca.
On April 28, Pfizer announced a possible offer to buy AstraZeneca, presumably having thought an announcement was required by rule 2.2 of the Takeover Code. The result is that, under the relatively new ‘put up or shut up’ rule now embodied in rule 2.5 of the Code, Pfizer has until 5 o’clock on May 26 …
Continue reading “Guest post: Pfizer’s bid for AstraZeneca – what can the government do?”
Loyal readers of Adam Smith, Esq. know that we think there’s much that can be learned for Law Land from other industries. Today’s column is in that vein, and our texts for today come from The New York Times and Above the Law.
