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11 July 2025
Issue: 8124 / Categories: Legal News , Profession , Procedure & practice , Expert Witness , Costs , Freezing orders , Tort
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NLJ this week: The insider on blockbuster judgments, fee spats & judicial elevations

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Writing in NLJ this week, columnist Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School surveys a month of judicial impatience with poor litigation practices

In Illiquidx v Altana, a claimant’s vague pleadings cost them 50% of their costs. The Court of Appeal moved at lightning speed in Getty v Stability AI, while Judge Hodge KC imposed a six-page limit on a ‘turgid’ defence in Bellhouse v Zurich. A 682-paragraph judgment in Cabo v MGA yielded no damages, reminding claimants that proving loss is key. In Vanquis v TMS Legal, a novel tort claim over mass meritless complaints proceeds.

Regan also highlights the 50th anniversary of the Mareva injunction, a looming costs battle over medical agency fees, and a decline in expert witness participation amid judicial ‘naming and shaming’. 

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Osbornes Law—Alex McMahon, Andrew Middlehurst & Harriet McMorrin

Osbornes Law—Alex McMahon, Andrew Middlehurst & Harriet McMorrin

Homegrown hat-trick: Osbornes Law promotes three former trainees to partner

mfg Solicitors—Sarah Bradford

mfg Solicitors—Sarah Bradford

Partner arrival boosts law firm’s growing real estate team

Freeths—David Smith

Freeths—David Smith

Freeths secures major tax hire with appointment of David Smith

NEWS
The Supreme Court has clarified the scope of a director’s duty, in a case where a chairman’s good intentions went awry due to the pandemic
Digital fraud is ‘baffling policymakers, investigators, prosecutors and enforcers’, leaving ‘a massive justice gap’, the author of a government-commissioned independent review has warned
Richard Lloyd’s independent review of the Legal Services Board (LSB) has delivered a devastating verdict, accusing the super-regulator of having ‘lost its way in recent years’
The House of Commons has passed the Hillsborough Law, in a historic achievement for campaigners, survivors and families of those who died in the 1989 stadium collapse
Judicial statistics show a steady rise in the number of female judges and Asian and mixed ethnicity judges in the past ten years—however, progress in terms of representation has stalled for both Black lawyers and for solicitors
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