John Downes's blog

The Prudential Insurance Co. has been given leave to appeal against a decision of the Court of Appeal that legal professional privilege is confined to lawyers (solicitors and barristers) and not to other professions. The Law Society of England and Wales intend to intervene in the appeal to protect that privilege, which they point out is long established in common law. 

The Bribery Act will come into force on 1st July 2011. The Bribery Act will:

The Scottish Law Commission have published a consultative document on reform of the rules of interpretation of contracts. This follows the publication of the Draft Common Frame of Reference in 2009.This sets out a contemporary statement of contract law, based on comparative research from across the European Union. The SLC report provides an interesting and detailed report on the existing approach to interpretation in Scotland and provides comparison with England and some Common Law countries. It also proposes a number of changes. More details can be found at:

The law governing false or misleading statements which may be made in respect of travel arrangements, holidays, accommodation, facilities, prices etc. in the UK was long contained in the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 and the Consumer Protection Act 1987 Most of the provisions of these two Acts have now bee replaced by these  Regulations which represent the biggest change in consumer law in the UK in 40 years

The Office of Fair Trading has just set out a long-term strategy to protect consumers shopping online in the UK. Online shopping in the UK is worth approximately £50bn i.e. €58.8bn/$77.9bn.

Legal ethics training for Law students

 The Law Society, in light of the review of legal services education and training in England and Wales announced by the legal regulators (the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board and the Institute of Legal Executives Professional Standards have launched the review), called for a greater focus on ethics in the Qualifying Law Degree and for the development of more robust systems for assuring quality in the provision of legal education and training.  

Scientists and lawyers get together

All the main political parties in Scotland agree that the country needs to tackle its long unhealthy relationship with alcohol and on 10^th November the Scottish Parliament approved the Alcohol etc (Scotland) Bill. However, the Scottish National Party (SNP) Government was disappointed that the main opposition parties failed to back proposals to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol. The vast majority of medical, police and social scientific experts in Scotland back the SNP on this matter.

Mr Dimitrios Gratsias has been appointed by the Member States as Judge at the General Court of the European Union. He replaces Mr Mihalis Vilaras.