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NLJ this week: Claimant issues, employment guidance & trade mark wisdom

14 February 2025
Issue: 8104 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , Civil way
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Former district judge Stephen Gold highlights some unplanned side-effects of proposed legislation to include the names of claimants in the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines, in this week’s NLJ.

Gold’s Civil Way column warns that claimants may be ‘bombarded at the wrong office by registry snoopers’. He also covers the latest on leasehold reforms, the Ogden tables, and a double serving of recently issued guidance—on communicating with employment tribunal staff and, from the president, on taking oral evidence from persons abroad.

Gold also covers the cloudy lemon cider dispute between Thatchers and Aldi, noting that when Thatchers launched its drink in 2020, it ‘took the wise step of registering its packaging design as a trade mark’, which helped it win its infringement case.

He writes: ‘A flurry of trade mark applications to protect packaging designs can be expected on the back of Thatchers’ success: not hitherto a practice invariably adopted.’ 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Boies Schiller Flexner—Tim Smyth

Boies Schiller Flexner—Tim Smyth

Firm promotes London international arbitration specialist to partnership

Katten Muchin Rosenman—James Davison & Victoria Procter

Katten Muchin Rosenman—James Davison & Victoria Procter

Firm bolsters restructuring practice with senior London hires

HFW—Guy Marrison

HFW—Guy Marrison

Global aviation disputes practice boosted by London partner hire

NEWS
Writing in NLJ this week, NLJ columnist Dominic Regan surveys a landscape marked by leapfrog appeals, costs skirmishes and notable retirements. With an appeal in Mazur due to be heard next month, Regan notes that uncertainties remain over who will intervene, and hopes for the involvement of the Lady Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls in deciding the all-important outcome
After the Southport murders and the misinformation that followed, contempt of court law has come under intense scrutiny. In this week's NLJ, Lawrence McNamara and Lauren Schaefer of the Law Commission unpack proposals aimed at restoring clarity without sacrificing fair trial rights
The latest Home Office figures confirm that stop and search remains both controversial and diminished. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort University analyses data showing historically low use of s 1 PACE powers, with drugs searches dominating what remains
Boris Johnson’s 2019 attempt to shut down Parliament remains a constitutional cautionary tale. The move, framed as a routine exercise of the royal prerogative, was in truth an extraordinary effort to sideline Parliament at the height of the Brexit crisis. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC dissects how prorogation was wrongly assumed to be beyond judicial scrutiny, only for the Supreme Court to intervene unanimously
A construction defect claim in the Court of Appeal offers a sharp lesson in pleading discipline. In his latest 'Civil way' column for NLJ, Stephen Gold explains how a catastrophically drafted schedule of loss derailed otherwise viable claims. Across the areas explored in this week's column, the message is consistent: clarity, economy and proper pleading matter more than ever
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