On 1 July 2011 the Bribery Act 2010 came into force. The Act extends the crime of bribery to cover all private sector transactions, as previously only bribery involving public officials and agents were offences, the Act has created a new strict liability offence where commercial organisations have failed to prevent bribery where a bribe has been paid, or received, by an employee, agent and/or other persons connected with an organisation.



The potential consequences for failing to…

(Almost everyone…)

As you may have read in certain press releases lately, many companies are offering free PV solar panels.

What’s the catch? you may ask, well I am going to attempt to explain the pros and cons.

If you get Solar Photo Voltaic panels fitted on to your roof you will be able to claim some of the £850 million that the government has set aside for the feed in tariff (…

Lucy Small, experienced clinical negligence solicitor with Lanyon Bowdler explains:

"As highlighted by the recent Tonight Programme on ITV (Thursday 8 September), there is much concern about the Governments proposals to remove Legal Aid for Clinical Negligence claims contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill,…

Today I completed the sale of an apartment for a demanding client who negotiated the sale of his property on the basis that his cash buyer would complete in 21 days.

The buyer's solicitor practices from a lovely Dales market town near here. He told me he'd look at my contract and reply 'when my  girl is  back in the office'.  I did not feel this boded well.  

A previous sale had just fallen through so up to date official searches were available and I supplied the full package…

Doing nothing with your investments may be your most successful strategy for creating wealth.

With equity markets fluctuating so much over the past weeks as economic new flows from the US and Eurozone alter between good and bad (or perhaps bad and not so bad) it is easy to make hasty investment decisions that may later be regreted.  I have spoken before about properly…

Paul Stafford' article looks at the registration requirements introduced by the Land Registration Act 2002 (first published in the PLJ June 2011)

Paul Stafford' article looks at the registration requirements introduced by the Land Registration Act 2002 (first published in the PLJ June 2011)

Charles Price, Employment Barrister looks at the recent judgment of 'Slade and Ors v TNT (UK) Ltd' where an employer wanted to remove the opportunity to win a bonus from the contracts of his workforce firstly by way of a sum of money and then by dismissal and re-engagement. This case illustrates the legal tests looked at when considering the fairness of the dismissals...

In this case, an employer had sought to change terms of employment and made an…

Apologies to all, but I am about to blaspheme, turn away now if you are easily offended.  You see I want to talk about swapping from hourly rates to fixed fees...I know shocking isn't it.

Fixed fees have been something which we all talk about, but few of us really use.  When we say fixed, what we normally mean is fixed, but only if I don't spend more time than that on your file which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't really a fixed fee is it?

Many…

In the words of Embrace (what happened to them?) Baby, it's  been a long time coming...   today we've sent our new website www.berwin.co.uk into the  big wide world.  We feel a bit like we've sent our child off for its first day at school, and like helicopter parents we're buzzing anxiously around, resisting the temptation to lick our hankies and tidy up a few smears that weren't there earlier.  It's been a week of frantic activity, blood, sweat, tears…

Latimer Hinks - Legal 500 recommends Latimer Hinks Solicitors

At a conference at Bolton Arena a representative of Land Registry gave a presentation which was followed by a question and answer session.

One of the questioners asked about the proposed centralisation of land charges and other conveyancing information currently held by local authorities and used to compile local searches by the council and personal search companies for use in the conveyancing process. The Land Registry representative informed the attendees that there are…

The recent riots in London, were in some part, coordinated through the use of Twitter and Facebook. The speed, broad reach and accessibility of the social networking sites proved to be a dangerous tool for some individuals inciting violence.

Once again, in the transatlantic employment law world, the use of social media has come under the spotlight. How can employers strike the balance between recognizing that sites like Facebook and Twitter are now an integral part of the…

Emma Broomfield, a clinical negligence solicitor with Lanyon Bowdler asks the question "Do you expect hospitals to be honest and up-front with you?"

She goes on to say "You might think that if something went wrong with your treatment when you were a patient, then the hospital would tell you the truth. The reality is that these mistakes are often ignored and patients left in the dark about what happened.

"Although many people thankfully have a good experience in hospital, as…

There’s a trend out there in business called gamification, and I can see it making an impact in Legal IT. Well maybe not tomorrow but someday.! What is gamification and how could it improve the use of technology inside a law firm and what could it mean for law firms clients?

Gamification is defined  in Wikipedia as ‘the integration of game mechanics or game dynamics into a website, service, community, campaign, or application in order to drive…

After Gazumping and Gazundering, we now have Gazanging (http://bit.ly/p4D5LK).

This is essentially where sellers accept an offer to buy, but then delay exchanging to the extent that the buyer believes they will never be able to buy the house.  It is the product of sellers putting their property on the market to see how much they can get for it but not actually looking for anywhere to buy.

This isn't a new practice, many…

As part of Social Media Week Glasgow, Burness LLP will host the very first offline meet up of the Employment Law for Human Resources in Scotland (ELHR) LinkedIn group.

The ELHR group is made up of over 500 HR professionals who embrace the use of social media and use the group to engage and network…

Tony Lillystone, on 1 September, suggested that title insurance (http://www.deferolaw.com/profiles/blogs/will-title-insurance-replace-traditional-conveyancing) could be the way forward for conveyancing.

I commented to agree with Tony's idea, but I wanted to follow up the point further.

For many of us title indemnity insurance has been a necessary evil…

So there I was, tucking into my Udon noodles in a trendy Soho noodle bar last week when I noticed this square bar code thing on my paper mat. It was partly obscured by the waiter's pencil scrawl for my order and to be honest I was a little bit worse for wear on the alcohol front. Despite these two minor issues, I was determined to scan this thing into my phone to see what happened. Out comes the smartphone. What to do now? I'm pretty sure I need to scan it and I'm pretty sure this will…

A District Court in New York has become the latest to find that using a competitor's trademark in Google's AdWords program can be trademark infringement. District Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf found that the Defendants' selection of "PILLOW PETS" and similar marks as a trigger for Google Ads is likely an infringement of the Plaintiff's registered trademarks "MY PILLOW PETS" and "IT'S A PILLOW, IT'S A PET", and granted Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. The case is CJ…