Still punching – Can boutiques keep moving up a weight class amid mounting competition?

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Still punching – Can boutiques keep moving up a weight class amid mounting competition?

‘Gone are the days where the client would just default to a certain adviser because that is who it has used all along,’ says Signature Litigation partner Daniel Spendlove. ‘Corporates, especially one-off distressed clients, are thinking about who they use carefully and that puts firms like ours in a strong position.’

Boutiques have been a striking feature of the disputes landscape for more than a decade. The rhetoric extols the virtues of the stripped-back model, unconstrained by the extra overheads that come with having multiple practice areas, and the conflict-free feature allows full-service firms to feel confident in referring disputes work to non-competitors. ‘What clients get is a focused offering. We’re not cross-selling other departments. We are simply here to handle a case,’ adds Spendlove. Continue reading “Still punching – Can boutiques keep moving up a weight class amid mounting competition?”

CAT rules in favour of claimants and funders as trucks cartel dispute intensifies

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CAT rules in favour of claimants and funders as trucks cartel dispute intensifies

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has today (29 October) laid down a marker in the ongoing trucks cartel dispute, giving the go ahead for claimants to bring their case to court through litigation funding.

The truck cartel dispute concerns six of the world’s largest truck manufacturers facing collective action claims. The European Commission dealt a €2.9bn fine in July 2016 for price fixing, which led the way for compensation claims from those who purchased or leased trucks from 1997 onwards. Continue reading “CAT rules in favour of claimants and funders as trucks cartel dispute intensifies”

Firms pile into fast-moving corporate crime sphere but is there enough work to keep all hands busy?

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Firms pile into fast-moving corporate crime sphere but is there enough work to keep all hands busy?

 

Georgina Stanley and Anna Cole-Bailey assess a highly competitive sector in flux

Tesco, Rolls-Royce, Unaoil, Greenergy – as companies face increasing scrutiny of their governance and anti-corruption procedures, the number of law firms striving to corner the lucrative white-collar/corporate crime market shows no sign of abating. Continue reading “Firms pile into fast-moving corporate crime sphere but is there enough work to keep all hands busy?”

Guest comment: Has ‘far more assertive’ Supreme Court over-reached in Miller 2?

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Guest comment: Has ‘far more assertive’ Supreme Court over-reached in Miller 2?

For some, Miller 2 is the most significant constitutional case for centuries. For others, just another act in the Shakespearean tragedy or comedy that is Brexit. As an editor of the UK Constitutional Law Blog I have found that lawyers made just as much fuss about the first case brought by Gina Miller in relation to Article 50 as they have over this recent decision. And yet still the constitution carries on; apocalyptic predictions of its demise are surely exaggerated?

It can certainly be argued that it takes more than a high-profile litigator, even one who gets two bites of the cherry (forgive the pun), to overturn our 800-year old constitution. But Miller 2 is, jurisprudentially, very different from Miller 1. It will take time to assimilate the various strands of the decision and we also wait to see whether the courts use it as a launch-pad into further political space. But simply in terms of its reasoning and robust language it already represents a far more assertive judicial attitude to Crown-Parliament relations than we have seen before. Although dressed up as a defence of Parliament, make no mistake, the Court is asserting its own constitutional position under the guise of being Parliament’s trouble-shooter. And if the Supreme Court follows up with further strident interventions in other areas of political decision-making, for example surrounding implementation of the ‘Benn Act’, the consequence could be a self-transformation of our highest appellate court into a constitutional court, comparable to other politically-engaged judicial powerhouses around the world. Continue reading “Guest comment: Has ‘far more assertive’ Supreme Court over-reached in Miller 2?”

The Bar – Happy when it rains

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The Bar – Happy when it rains

Like the rest of Britain, barristers at the commercial Bar are impatiently waiting for some clarity over Brexit: it is a paramount concern because they want London to retain its position as the premier location for international business disputes. But more than three years on from the referendum result, the much-debated uncertainty has not yet had a significant impact on the volume or value of their work.

‘The commercial Bar is thriving at the moment and I expect it to continue to thrive,’ says Sonia Tolaney QC, chair of The Commercial Bar Association. ‘Dealing with the still-unknown consequences of Brexit presents a challenge. But although there has been a period of real uncertainty, the truth is that the health of the commercial Bar is very strong.’ Continue reading “The Bar – Happy when it rains”