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21 March 2019 / Julian Chamberlayne
Issue: 7833 / Categories: Features , Personal injury
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Will the new discount rate remain negative?

Julian Chamberlayne provides an update on the current position on the discount rate, & analyses the recent call for evidence
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) closed its call for evidence on the discount rate at the end of January. The evidence will inform the lord chancellor on his discount rate review which was triggered this week. He has 140 days to set the new rate, which will be in place by 5 August 2019.


The call for evidence

The bulk of the call for evidence was directed at financial advisers and investment managers in an attempt to ascertain claimant investment behaviour. This is to inform the lord chancellor’s decision-making because under s 4(5) of the Civil Liability Act 2018 (CLA 2018) he must have regard to actual returns available, actual investments made by investors of damages, and make appropriate allowances for tax, inflation and investment management costs.

On behalf of Forum of Complex Injury Solicitors (FOCIS), I submitted a detailed response to address several misconceptions in the call for evidence

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NEWS
A seemingly dry procedural update may prove potent. In his latest 'Civil way' column for NLJ this week, Stephen Gold explains that new CPR 31.12A—part of the 193rd update—fills a ‘lacuna’ exposed in McLaren Indy v Alpa Racing
The long-running Mazur saga edged towards its finale as the Court of Appeal heard arguments on whether non-solicitors can ‘conduct litigation’. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School reports from a packed courtroom where 16 wigs watched Nick Bacon KC argue that Mr Justice Sheldon had failed to distinguish between ‘tasks and responsibilities’

The Court of Appeal has slammed the brakes on claimants trying to swap defendants after limitation has expired. In Adcamp LLP v Office Properties and BDB Pitmans v Lee [2026] EWCA Civ 50, it overturned High Court rulings that had allowed substitutions under s 35(6)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, reports Sarah Crowther of DAC Beachcroft in this week's NLJ

Cheating in driving tests is surging—and courts are responding firmly. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort Law School charts a rise in impersonation and tech-assisted fraud, with 2,844 attempts recorded in a year
As AI-generated ‘deepfake’ images proliferate, the law may already have the tools to respond. In NLJ this week, Jon Belcher of Excello Law argues that such images amount to personal data processing under UK GDPR
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