“After a deluge of complaints from commuters who were left stuck on freezing platforms during last winter’s cold snap, the Office of Rail Regulator has taken on new powers to protect train travellers.”
Daily Telegraph, 1st December 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“An independent panel examining the summer riots which hit cities in England has said the scheme designed to pay out compensation needs an overhaul.”
BBC News, 28th November 2011
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“On the 9th of September, the Government declared its intent to tackle the ‘compensation culture’. This phrase, hitherto unknown prior to the removal of legal aid, now appears to typify an apparent endemic problem which is at the centre of the legal political agenda. The debate on the ‘compensation culture’ is now the focus of lobbying by insurers, claimant and defendant firms, unions and human rights organisations who wish either to validate or undermine the concept. Characterised as representing either the ills of society or the self interested protests of the few it has thus far proved impervious to eradication.”
Hardwicke Chambers, 17th November 2011
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
“The government has agreed to pay more than £22,000 compensation to the family of Christopher Alder, who choked to death in a Hull police station in 1998.”
BBC News, 22nd November 2011
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“An Oxford boy left brain damaged after complications during his birth has been given £1m compensation.”
BBC News, 19th November 2011
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“UK copyright reform could be ‘undermined’ if the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules that copyright levies must still be charged when rights holders have given their permission for work to be copied, an IT trade association has said.”
OUT-LAW.com, 14th November 2011
Source: www.out-law.com
A recession tends to lead to more claims but fewer trials. Employees naturally look for ways to maximise the value of their claims – particularly by reference to causes of action that bust the cap for a ‘vanilla’ unfair dismissal – often (in the case of high value employees) by reference to the whistleblowing legislation. The ‘bar’ for what qualifies for protection as a whistleblowing disclosure is set relatively low, and an employee dismissed from (say) employment in the financial services sector can usually identify something he or she has said in the recent past that can be held out as ‘revealing’ the employer’s true motivation for dismissing and/or as supporting a section 103A claim. On the flip side, recessions may give employers greater scope for ‘Polkey Chance’ arguments – market uncertainty undermines security of employment, and even if the employee has been unfairly dismissed now, who is to say that he or she would still have been in post in a year’s time?
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11 KBW, 10th November 2011
Source: www.11kbw.com
“A Cambridge student was ordered to pay thousands of pounds in compensation to a female undergraduate after he fell while carrying her and crushed her pelvis while drunk.”
Daily Telegraph, 25th October 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Compensation payments for workplace accidents could be cut under a government drive to reduce the cost of red tape to businesses.”
Daily Telegraph, 22nd October 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The lawyer who advised News Group to pay £425,000 to Gordon Taylor said today the company was in an unprecedented position because the Professional Footballers Association chief had evidence that his phone had been hacked.”
The Independent, 19th October 2011
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“The UK Supreme Court has backed the right of people in Scotland to claim damages for the asbestos-related condition pleural plaques.”
BBC News, 12th October 2011
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Northern Rock Applicants v Caldwell and another [2011] UKUT 408 (TCC); [2011] WLR (D) 289
“The statutory assumption in section 5(4)(a) of the Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 that all financial assistance provided by the Bank of England or the Treasury ‘has been withdrawn’ required the independent valuer to assume that the assistance had been terminated and repaid, following realisations of assets made just before the date of nationalisation.”
WLR Daily, 6th October 2011
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Rossetti Marketing Ltd v Diamond Sofa Co Ltd [2011] EWHC 2482 (QB); [2011] WLR (D) 287
“Whether a party was a commercial agent within the meaning of Council Directive 86/653/EEC of 18 December 1986 on the coordination of the laws of the member states relating to self-employed commercial agents or the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 was to be determined by reference to the terms and context of the agreement at the date it was concluded. The non-derogable obligations of a commercial agent under article 3(1) of the Directive and regulation 3(1) of the 1993 Regulations, to look after the interests of the principal and to act dutifully and in good faith, were not to be imported into the definition of ‘commercial agent’ so that an agent acting for multiple principles did not fall within it.”
WLR Daily, 3rd October 2011
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“A court’s decision to award £50,000 compensation to a schoolboy rugby player after he was injured by on-field debris has sparked calls for judges to ‘live in a realistic world.'”
Daily Telegraph, 5th October 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“A protester who was held in police cells for six hours during a crackdown on street protests during the royal wedding has received £5,000 compensation and an official apology from the Metropolitan police.”
The Guardian, 23rd September 2011
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The levy paid into a special fund by pension schemes to pay compensation to their members should the scheme go insolvent has been reduced for the next three years, the fund organisers have announced.”
OUT-LAW.com, 23rd September 2011
Source: www.out-law.com
“The family of Milly Dowler, the murdered teenager whose mobile phone was hacked by the News of the World, has written to the prime minister urging him to abandon legal reforms that will prevent victims suing for compensation.”
The Guardian, 22nd September 2011
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Related link: Dowler family letter to David Cameron
“The family of a Berkshire woman who died after a serious asthma attack has received a six-figure compensation settlement after a hospital trust admitted it was negligent.”
BBC News, 22nd September 2011
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Families of those killed on all sides during the Troubles may take up civil claims once this precedent is set.”
The Guardian, 22nd September 2011
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The family of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler have been offered £3 million in damages from News International after the publisher of the News of the World admitted her phone had been hacked.”
Daily Telegraph, 20th September 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
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