Day: 31 March 2025

‘Every divorce is unique. But very few cases are quite as extraordinary as the divorce of James Morgan Copinger-Symes and his now ex-wife, Maria-Christina, a former manager of the band INXS. The couple, who married in 1998, had four children and lived in a multimillion-pound townhouse in Chelsea. In a recent judgment handed down in the Central Family Court, His Honour Judge Edward Hess presided over a highly unusual and remarkable dispute involving the Copinger-Symes’ divorce settlement, which was finalised in 2022.’

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Law Society's Gazette, 28th March 2025

Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk

‘In March 2024, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal rejected the SRA’s case that by failing to carry out adequate checks on a “politically exposed person” under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 (“the 2007 MLRs”), Dentons had breached Principle 7 of the SRA Principles 2011 and/or Outcome 7.5 of the SRA’s Code of Conduct 2011. A year later, however, on 11 March 2025, the High Court overturned that decision in SRA v Dentons UK & Middle East LLP [2025] EWHC 353 (Admin) and remitted the case to the SDT for further consideration.’

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4 New Square, 24th March 2025

Source: www.4newsquare.com

‘Many force majeure clauses include the proviso that they cannot be used to affect a contract if the relevant obstacle to performance could reasonably be overcome by the parties. In RTI Ltd. v MUR Shipping BV [2024] UKSC 18, [2024] 2 W.L.R. 1350, the question was whether such a proviso can require a party to accept an offer of alternative, but equivalent, non-contractual benefits, instead of using the force majeure clause.’

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Cambridge Law Journal, 7th January 2025

Source: www.cambridge.org

‘A criminology student who had a “grievance against women” has been jailed for attacking two friends in a frenzied stabbing on a beach in Bournemouth.’

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BBC News, 28th March 2025

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

‘In the absence of financial provision akin to divorcing couples, the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (TOLATA) is a tool for separating couples in relation to their property. TOLATA claims are brought under the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR).’

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St Philips Barristers, 28th March 2025

Source: st-philips.com

‘A man with a horror obsession who murdered and dismembered his elderly housemate before scattering his body parts across their home city has been jailed for life.’

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The Independent, 28th March 2025

Source: www.independent.co.uk

‘A senior district judge has again attacked credit hire claims, as well as a process-driven approach to bringing them, in a case where he awarded £1,200 for a claim valued at £50,200.’

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Legal Futures, 31st March 2025

Source: www.legalfutures.co.uk

‘Does the judge who hears a case affect the outcome and, particularly, in the U.K.’s top court? This is a question that has received increasing attention of late. In this blog post, I utilise my research on the behind-the-scenes proceedings in the Pinochet case (1998-99) to address this question, stressing the role of the judges’ personal values, ideologies and emotions, the culture of the court, and the interplay between law and politics in shaping the outcome of cases.’

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UK Constitutional Law Association, 31st March 2025

Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org

‘Prosecutions of the enablers of tax evasion have plummeted by at least 75% in the past five years, with fewer than five criminal cases in 2023-2024.’

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The Guardian, 30th March 2025

Source: www.theguardian.com

‘This article draws out two injustices to which retrospective criminal legislation may give rise: undermining accessibility of law and challenging equality before the law. It is argued that the censuring function of criminal law exacerbates both wrongs. This sets the stage for an analysis of delaying prisoners’ release. It is suggested that retrospective reform in this context threatens the same values as those threatened by retrospective criminalisation. Yet, the safeguards against retrospective reform of release provisions are weak due to two important strands of case law, one concerning which penalty was ‘applicable at the time’ of the offence and another which draws a distinction between penalties and their execution. Both strands of case law are in need of fundamental reconsideration if article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights is to realise its purposes of upholding rule-of-law values and providing practicable safeguards.’

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Legal Studiesm 6th March 2025

Source: academic.oup.com

‘Parents and children experiencing shorter family court hearings following a government review is “encouraging”, a minister has said.’

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BBC News, 29th March 2025

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

‘The Supreme Court’s judgment in R (The Spitalfields Historic Building Trust) v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2025] UKSC 11 traverses some important ground concerning the principle of legality and heightened-scrutiny rationality review — and serves as a reminder that a good deal of work remains to be done if doctrine and principle are to sit in appropriate relationship in this area of administrative law.’

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Public Law for Everyone, 28th March 2025

Source: publiclawforeveryone.com

‘In what is believed to be the first of its kind, a team of specialist lawyers, Sarah Wood & Ashley Fairbrother, and experts, Carmel King, worked alongside law enforcement to secure a full recovery under the recently enacted s.303Z51 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) for their client, Mr. A, an 80-year-old man who lost over £520,000 to a sophisticated crypto scam.’

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5SAH, 27th March 2025

Source: www.5sah.co.uk

‘In Tickle v The BBC and others [2025] EWCA Civ 42, the Court of Appeal considered whether the courts had the power to make orders anonymising the names of judges. The issue concerned the anonymisation of the names of three judges who had presided over historical family proceedings concerning Sara Sharif. Although this was a family law case, it has wider significance.’

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Law Society's Gazette, 28th March 2025

Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk

‘A proposed overhaul of copyright law risks “running roughshod” over a British design industry that has created such memorable products as the red phone box, the London underground map and the iPhone, according to a group of leading UK designers.’

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The Guardian, 31st March 2025

Source: www.theguardian.com

‘Two brothers who groomed and raped vulnerable girls as young as 13 in Rotherham have been jailed.’

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BBC News, 28th March 2025

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

‘The two largest legal regulators – the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Bar Standards Board (BSB) – are the only ones to fail their performance assessments over the past year, the Legal Services Board (LSB) revealed today.’

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Legal Futures, 31st March 2025

Source: www.legalfutures.co.uk