Guest post: Prerogatives, power and press regulation

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I make no apology for returning to the question of the Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press. This was discussed in my earlier post of 14 October, which concluded by noting: ‘Perhaps the Charter will somehow be challenged before the courts. Unless that happens, the existence of a prerogative power to regulate the press is likely to become accepted given that the Charter itself effectively claims a prerogative right to do so by using the words: “Now know ye that we by our prerogative royal …..will, ordain and declare ….” It might then be wondered what might be ordained and declared at some time in the unknown future when some further need for State Control over some activity is perceived.’

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Guest post: Chasing PLCs in corporate crackdown – it’s still all about the money

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In response to criticism that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) does not go after a sufficient number of corporates, SFO director David Green QC made clear recently that there is no ‘fear’ within the SFO to do so in appropriate cases.

The announcement last week (which we reported here) that the SFO has charged Smith and Ouzman Limited over alleged bribery and corruption underscores the point.

Continue reading “Guest post: Chasing PLCs in corporate crackdown – it’s still all about the money”

Guest blog – Securities lawyers and sticky contracts: innovation and elite law

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I am sure you, like me, have been on the lookout for an elegant, readable, sophisticated and fairly short book about sovereign debt agreements. And one that happens to end as a critique of elite legal practice. And here it is, The Three and a Half Minute Transaction: boilerplate and the limits of contract design by Professors Gulati and Scott. It blends economic and behavioural theory, history and law, qualitative and quantitative data with solid and measured arguments. Continue reading “Guest blog – Securities lawyers and sticky contracts: innovation and elite law”

Comment: The social contract – what is the law firm but the people?

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The market for legal services will never be the same again. Mergers, alternative business structures, multi-disciplinary practices, law firm failures, onshoring, offshoring and the continual advance of technology all signpost change, and will continue to drive change in the future. But as we all jostle for market position and attempt to make sense of this ongoing maelstrom, how much thought is being given to the lifeblood of the profession: the lawyers of tomorrow?

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Guest blog – Innovation in law: are you one of us?

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Debates about innovation in law can be a bit tribal. The Creative Destroyers decry the billable hour. They mock Big Law as a broken model and see law as a dusty rule book in need of big data and a scientific reinvention. Law is vastly complex and inefficient. More traditional folk point to the resilience of law, and law firms. They snigger, not always unfairly, at the self-serving evangelism of the new model insurgents. And they comfort themselves, unwisely I suspect, with any signs that the current crop of innovators are failing. The singularity may not be near, but that does not mean that it is far. Continue reading “Guest blog – Innovation in law: are you one of us?”

Guest blog – In the small print: Huge shake up in UK bribery enforcement, US style whistleblowing & UK False Claims Act

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Buried in the small print and missed by many in the hullabaloo surrounding the launch of the new UK National Crime Agency (a rebranded roll up of existing crime law enforcement in the UK) are proposals to significantly overhaul the UK approach to dealing with bribery and corruption announced by the UK Home Secretary Theresa May.

Buried in the press release issued by the UK Home Office was the throwaway line:

‘New arrangements for reporting and investigating corruption’ Continue reading “Guest blog – In the small print: Huge shake up in UK bribery enforcement, US style whistleblowing & UK False Claims Act”

Guest post – Opinion: SFO confirms 8 Bribery Act ‘Projects’ – enforcement rhetoric will convert into action

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‘We have some 68 cases on our books at present, including matters under development in our intelligence section; these include eight Bribery Act projects. We have also charged our first offences under the Bribery Act 2010.’

said David Green speaking at the Cambridge Economic Symposium [on 2 September].

The SFO may have laid its first Bribery Act charges but they were not against a corporate.

Speaking at the symposium Mr Green went on to say:

‘What the SFO does helps to underpin the recovery by attacking criminal corporate behaviour and thereby encouraging good corporate culture. Similarly, foreign bribery undermines civil society, and ultimately harms the poorest most.’

Blah blah blah. Say some.

Over two years old and brought in with huge fanfare and publicity the lack of visible enforcement against a corporate has created a false sense of security among many. Continue reading “Guest post – Opinion: SFO confirms 8 Bribery Act ‘Projects’ – enforcement rhetoric will convert into action”

Guest post: A fight to the death- can the Law Society and its regulatory arm continue as now?

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‘My terms of reference include a requirement to propose a framework that promotes the public and consumer interest, promotes competition, promotes innovation and is transparent,’ wrote Sir David Clementi in 2004. ‘I do not believe that the current combination of regulatory and representative powers, in particular within the Law Society and the Bar Council, permit a framework that gets close to meeting this requirement…A key recommendation of this review is that the regulatory and representative functions of front-line regulatory bodies should be clearly split.’ Continue reading “Guest post: A fight to the death- can the Law Society and its regulatory arm continue as now?”

Guest post – Syria: the UK can legally use force

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In some ways this week, with the recall of Parliament and the UK tabling a UN resolution, seems like a fast replay of the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many people’s attitudes to what’s happening are informed by the experience of Iraq, and reflect the view they took of that action ten years ago. Mine too.

So it may be no surprise that, although my legal argument is different here from that in the case of Iraq, and involves undoubted legal controversy, I think there is a proper legal basis on which the UK can participate in military action against Syria.

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Guest post: Could David Miranda be a “terrorist”?

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There’s understandably been a great deal of reaction to the nine-hour detention at Heathrow airport of David Miranda, who was travelling as part of his work with Guardian journalists covering Edward Snowden’s disclosures, and whose laptop and memory stick were seized as a result of his detention and questioning under paragraphs 2 and 6 of Schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000.

Paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 7 says that:

An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b)

and section 40(1) provides that a

“terrorist” means a person who …

(b) is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

So there’s no doubt: the purpose of Schedule 7 is clear. Continue reading “Guest post: Could David Miranda be a “terrorist”?”