News
Northern Rock legal challenge
Legal action on behalf of Northern Rock shareholders disgruntled over the government’s valuation of their shares has begun. After the collapse of the bank, the Treasury announced it would appoint an independent arbitration panel to value Northern Rock as a business and to place a value on its shares. However, the shareholders are seeking judicial review under the Human Rights Act 1998 on the basis that the criteria for valuation of the compensation set by the government unnecessarily restricts the valuation process and is in breach of shareholders’ human rights.
David Greene, litigation partner at Edwin Coe and solicitor for the Northern Rock Small Shareholders Group, says: “The government should not be able to expropriate assets by nationalisation but must pay good value, and the criteria they have set is, on purpose, as low an evaluation as possible.
“Our argument is based on the criteria for the valuation process, which makes assumptions, one of which is that the company is in administration, and therefore not a going concern. We say that the government, as an expropriator of assets, does not have the right to set the criteria for valuation. The nationalisation itself becomes unlawful if the criteria used were unlawful.”
Law lords grant reprieve in extradition
A House of Lords ruling has blocked the extradition of businessman Ian Norris, former head of Morgan Crucible, to the on charges of operating a cartel. The decision allows Norris’s appeal against the decision to extradite him to the on charges of price-fixing contrary to the Sherman Act and obstruction of justice. The ruling is based on the argument that the price-fixing is alleged to have occurred before 2003, when the relevant statutory offence came into force in the . Under the terms of the ’s extradition treaty with the , the offence must have been a criminal act in both countries at the time it occurred.
The law lords reject the argument that price-fixing also constitutes the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud on the basis that price-fixing is not an offence at common law and that to declare it as such breaches the principle of legal certainty. Norris’s solicitor, Alistair Graham, litigation partner at White and Case, says: “We’re absolutely delighted that the House of Lords has upheld what we’ve been saying for more than two years, namely that no criminal offence of price-fixing existed in the UK prior to the enactment of the Enterprise Act and that price-fixing in itself cannot be characterised as the old English common law offence of conspiracy to defraud.”
Judge prescribes re-instatement of GPs’ pensions
The British Medical Association (BMA) is celebrating after winning its legal challenge against the government’s retrospective introduction of limits on GPs’ pensions. In R (on the application of the BMA and another) v Secretary of State for Health, Mr Justice Mitting said the government behaved unlawfully in 2006 when the secretary of state for health backtracked on its agreed method of calculating pensions. GPs are usually self-employed and their pensions are calculated using a “dynamising” factor to bring their contributions up to present day values, which the government capped in 2006, effectively reducing the pensions of those who retired between 2004 and 2006 by £3,000 per year.
Dr Peter Gooderham of says: “The GP contract was sold to the medical profession as a package, which included apparent commitments from the government with respect to pension provisions. The possibility of an appeal exists but the prompt and clear ruling from Mitting J suggests that this is likely to be unsuccessful. Personally, I believe his decision to be absolutely correct, and a warning to the government not to attempt further backtracking on the GP contract. This ruling suggests that the BMA should gain confidence from challenging other unilateral changes to the GP contract, such as altered hours of work. The importance of contemporaneous documentary evidence of apparent government commitments cannot be underestimated.” Gooderham adds that the decision also has a wider bearing in an adverse financial climate in which other public sector pensions may be threatened.
Appeal court delivers police juror verdict
Police officers, prison officers and Crown Prosecution Service staff called for jury duty should tell judges what their profession is prior to the start of trials, the lord chief justice says. In R v Bakish Alla Khan and Others the question arose of whether a police officer who knows another officer who is giving evidence can serve on a jury. The defendants were convicted of a conspiracy to supply Class A drugs by a jury which included a police officer juror, who informed the judge that he had a passing acquaintance with a police officer who was to give evidence, but failed to inform the court that he had been involved in a number of police drug operations.
Dismissing the appeal, Lord Phillips said:
“It is undesirable that the apprehension of jury bias should lead to appeals such as those with which this court has been concerned. It is particularly undesirable if such appeals lead to the quashing of convictions so that re-trials have to take place. In order to avoid this it is desirable that any risk of jury bias, or of unfairness as a result of partiality to witnesses should be identified before the trial begins. If such a risk may arise, the juror should be stood down.”
However, Mark George of
Garden Court North, who represented Ilyas Hanif, one of the defendants, says: “Parliament has decided that police officers are no longer automatically disqualified from juries.“Lots of cases go to the crown court where police evidence is formal or not challenged, for example, most sexual assaults and assaults. Then it is difficult to argue that police officers should not serve on juries.
“However, police officers in particular are paid to arrest and prosecute people, and are part and parcel of the prosecution, so it is not unreasonable to suggest that they are naturally more inclined to believe the evidence of other police officers. In Ingleton, the Court of Appeal came close to saying that if there is likely to be a challenge to police evidence then it is better that police officers do not serve on the jury. “I think the test should be that where there is a more than minimal challenge to the police evidence then a police officer should not serve on the jury. My argument is that anyone who is accused of a crime has a right to an impartial rather than a partial jury.”
The defence is currently seeking leave to appeal to the House of Lords and, if refused, will consider taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights in .
Lawyers happy to spend time at work…and job hunt
Lawyers are happy with the amount of hours they work, but most of them still keep an eye on the job market, according to a LexisNexis survey published this week.
Nearly 60% of the 570 legal professionals who took part in the survey say they work 45 hours a week or less while 20% work between 45 and 50 hours, which casts some doubt on the common perception that all lawyers work gruelling days in the office, Although a quarter of respondents believe working long hours is important to gain promotion, more than half disagree. The fly in the ointment, however, is that more than a quarter say their hours are increasing, compared with a mere 3.6% who say they are decreasing. The research, LexisNexis Butterworths Legal Salary Survey 2007, is the first in what the legal publishing company intends to be an annual survey. A quarter of respondents work in a firm with five partners or less, a quarter work in a five to 25 partner firm, 18% in a top 500 or magic circle firm and 17% work in-house. Two-thirds are solicitors, 4.4% barristers and the rest are paralegals, legal marketers and other associated professionals. Half are women and 42% are 10 years plus post qualified.
Charles Barber, head of marketing, online communities, magazines and journals at LexisNexis, says: “The survey is good news for recruitment consultants, whom respondents cite as the most popular method of finding a new job, closely followed by networking, word of mouth and job websites such as NLJ’s www.newlaw-jobs.co.uk. Only one in five contacted employers direct or looked at national newspapers.” Barber adds that nearly half of the respondents say they are looking for a job or intend to do so in the next two years. One in five respondents hopes to make a move to an in-house position, 23% want to work for a five to 25 partner firm, and 16% want to work for a firm with five partners or less. Some 11% want a job in a top 100 firm, 10% want to join a top 500 firm and 3% hope to work for a
Magic Circle firm.
