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19 September 2025 / Stephen Gold
Issue: 8131 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Civil way
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Civil way: 19 September 2025

Specials interest down; LPAs to cost more; canapes in Supreme Court; £24ph for LiPs

LAWBITES

Interest jerk The Bank of England base rate does not change without movement of the Court Funds Office’s (CFO) special account rate. That makes life tough for the sucker you charge with the job of calculating interest on personal injury specials. The latest base rate change means that as from 20 August 2025 the special account rate has dropped from 4.25% to 4.00%. The CFO basic rate was also down from 3.19% to 3.00%. If the sucker is not up to the job, see ‘Civil way’, NLJ, 17 January 2025, p15.

Bloody hell ‘This House Believes that Matrimonialisation is a Load of B……s’. That is the motion to be debated later in the day of the Financial Remedies Conference on 16 October 2025. By then the earlier chair Mr Justice Peel and speaker Sir Nicholas Mostyn may have been handed a redacted programme and be safely out of the building.

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Freeths—Rachel Crosier

Freeths—Rachel Crosier

Projects and rail practices strengthened by director hire in London

Bird & Bird—Gordon Moir

Bird & Bird—Gordon Moir

London tech and comms team boosted by telecoms and regulatory hires

DWF—Stephen Hickling

DWF—Stephen Hickling

Real estate team in Birmingham welcomes back returning partner

NEWS
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 transformed criminal justice. Writing in NLJ this week, Ed Cape of UWE and Matthew Hardcastle and Sandra Paul of Kingsley Napley trace its ‘seismic impact’
Operational resilience is no longer optional. Writing in NLJ this week, Emma Radmore and Michael Lewis of Womble Bond Dickinson explain how UK regulators expect firms to identify ‘important business services’ that could cause ‘intolerable levels of harm’ if disrupted
Refusing ADR is risky—but not always fatal. Writing in NLJ this week, Masood Ahmed and Sanjay Dave Singh of the University of Leicester analyse Assensus Ltd v Wirsol Energy Ltd: despite repeated invitations to mediate, the defendant stood firm, made a £100,000 Part 36 offer and was ultimately ‘wholly vindicated’ at trial
Criminal juries may be convicting—or acquitting—on a misunderstanding. Writing in NLJ this week Paul McKeown, Adrian Keane and Sally Stares of The City Law School and LSE report troubling survey findings on the meaning of ‘sure’
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has narrowly preserved a key weapon in its anti-corruption arsenal. In this week's NLJ, Jonathan Fisher KC of Red Lion Chambers examines Guralp Systems Ltd v SFO, in which the High Court ruled that a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) remained in force despite the company’s failure to disgorge £2m by the stated deadline
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