Philip Gray
Blog: CFAs in libel claims come under fresh attack
Posted by Philip Gray on November 18, 2008 8:00 AM
Last month a UN Report heavily criticized Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs - commonly referred to as no-win no-fee arrangements) now the Editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail, Mr Paul Dacre has strongly voiced his concerns over the use of CFAs by "unscrupulous" lawyers whose "scandalous greed" ramps up costs in cases involving the media.
Mr Dacre told the Society of Editors conference in Bristol on Sunday night that the combination of the current libel laws and use of CFAs meant that even well-resourced media groups like his own, Associated Newspapers, feared the financial implications of contesting certain libel and privacy actions and added that it was beyond the means of local newspapers to contest even the most factually straight forward of claims.
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Blog: Are we on the verge of a claim surge?
Posted by Philip Gray on November 10, 2008 5:45 PM
In September, the Ministry of Justice published court statistics for 2007. The High Court has seen a modest increase in overall claims. However, the number of cases brought in the High Court is dwarfed however by those started in the county courts, who issued more than 2m non-family claims in 2007.
There is evidence from the US that the financial crisis has prompted a steady increase in claims in its courts and we all know that what happens first in America...well you know the rest.
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Blog: UK Libel Law v Freedom of Expression
Posted by Philip Gray on October 14, 2008 10:46 AM
Do the UK libel laws prevent free speech?
A UN Report in the last month severally criticizes Britain's libel laws as being unduly restrictive stifling free speech so that newspapers, journalists and commentators are discouraged from critical reporting on matters of serious public interest to the public.
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Blog: The Law on Importing Grey Goods is Black and White
Posted by Philip Gray on October 10, 2008 3:59 PM
In the last year there has been a sharp increase in the number of cases we have dealt with involving "grey goods".
Grey goods are classed as products carrying a trade mark imported from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for resale within. In law dealing with grey goods constitutes trade mark infringement even if the distributor was unaware he had bought grey goods. This punishment of innocent businesses does not apply to many other types of Intellectual Property - including copyright.
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BLOG: The Legal Risks of Corporate Blogs
Posted by Philip Gray on August 28, 2008 12:18 PM
I have been blogging, or, more accurately blawging, for over six months now and have really enjoyed being able to share my thoughts on the law and being a trainee solicitor on the Legal Week site.
Blogging is becoming ever more popular as the tradition media struggles to retain viewers/readers and many people seek their news and editorial comment in the instant electronic online world where information is free and available in enormous magnitude. Yet much online content, including most blogs, is unedited, or, not subject to approval from the website publisher or ISP.
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BLOG: New rules on football transfers illustrate ever increasing player power
Posted by Philip Gray on August 27, 2008 4:03 PM
Football is big business. Nothing new in that statement, but for the many of the countries big clubs this has been a positive development allowing massive increases in revenue and profit. However, as a big business football is no longer immune to contract and business-to-business law.
The new "Webster clause" from the landmark decision made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) earlier this year, is likely to shape the future of football transfers and has already caused more than one top manager a headache.
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Damages for over exposed Mosley
Posted by Philip Gray on July 24, 2008 2:34 PM
FIA President Max Mosley has won damages of £60,000 (plus legal costs) after he succeeded in his privacy claim against News Group Newspapers.
Last week, the High Court ruled that Moseley's privacy had been infringed by The News of the World who published a video and front page article which showed intimate scenes of Mosley involved in S&M sessions with several professional dominatrices.
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Blog: The decline of trials and the growth of mediation
Posted by Philip Gray on April 30, 2008 2:02 PM
In the last five years there has been a marked increase in the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and in particular mediation, as a means of settling disputes quickly and on a commercial basis. Despite the improvements to the litigation procedure in the post-Woolf era, litigation remains an expensive, time consuming and stressful process which can turn into a continuous drain on a businesses resources (management time and profits), often with costs in excess of the sum in dispute.
It is estimated that mediation saves UK businesses nearly £1 billion a year. As well as being quicker and cheaper, the mediation process lends itself to settlement as it brings about a more conciliatory attitude on the parties than might prevail in preparation for trial. Most mediators have a settlement success rate of over 70 per cent and in some cases as high as 95 per cent.
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Blog: It’s not just Dragons Den - Innovation and entrepreneurialism alive in Liverpool
Posted by Philip Gray on March 28, 2008 5:20 PM
Recent headlines reporting the sale of online networking site Bebo for around £290M show just how profitable a good idea can be. Inventing and entrepreneurialism in general has become ingrained in popular culture in recent years thanks largely to TV shows such as Dragons Den. The resurgence in entrepreneurialism is particularly evident in Liverpool thanks to the growth of organisations providing support and advice to budding entrepreneurs and inventors.
However, the fact remains that the vast majority of ideas never get off the drawing board. There are two hurdles facing an entrepreneur/inventor, and both can only be overcome by securing funding, and usually a lot of it. The first problem is getting a good idea on paper off the drawing board to produce a working prototype. The second is to obtain legal protection for the idea whether that be a patent or registered design right. Neither come cheap.
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Blog: Back in the Office
Posted by Philip Gray on March 10, 2008 5:38 PM
I’ve been away for a while (from the blog pages, not the desk), but the most interesting events of the past month have come, to a large extent, outside the office, or at least outside of Kirwans’ offices.
The most exciting of which was a trip down to London to attend a mediation at one of the large City firms, on one of our most demanding cases.
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Blog: Rafa's left it too late to claim
Posted by Philip Gray on February 4, 2008 9:35 AM
Last week saw employment lawyers getting very excited about the prospect of Rafa Benitez suing Liverpool Football Club for constructive dismissal after it became public that club owners Hicks and Gillett had approached Jurgen Klinsmann with a view to replacing Rafa. Constructive dismissal can be raised by an employee if they resign as a result of a fundamental breach of trust shown by the employer and do so soon after the breach. (Personally, I was far more excited about the fundamental breach in Liverpool’s defence that allowed Havant & Waterlooville to take the lead twice at Anfield last weekend!). Nevertheless, on the subject of constructive dismissal, the obvious setback for a potential claim is that Rafa, unsurprisingly, remains at the club. I can’t actually remember the last Premiership manager who actually resigned his position without leaving on the increasingly common “mutual consent� basis. Thus in all likelihood a claim was never a real possibility, much like Liverpool's title bid Rafa's left it a too late!
On to a slightly less glamorous, but far more relevant area of employment law to many in the North West, that being employment agencies. This is an area of law that has resulted in an increasing amount of litigation and uncertainly due mainly to the increase in EU migrants working in the primary and secondary sectors and the growth in agencies employing them.
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BLOG: Opening Thoughts...
Posted by Philip Gray on January 14, 2008 5:28 PM
How to start? How to start? And just how many minutes of my week am I actually going to spend pondering the same?!
These were my main thoughts this week. I considered an opening joke, introducing myself in the form of a lonely-heart ad and various other equally less humorous openings; then tried Googling ‘funny openings lines’, before deciding blatant plagiarism was best left in the past with my first year undergraduate history degree.
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