Results tagged “kirwans” from LDP - The Legal Week

ONE characteristic of the downturn in the property market is a swing in the balance of power towards business tenants involved in lease negotiations.

Unsurprisingly the last twelve months has seen a general decline in new commercial property tenancies coupled with an unfortunate but inevitable rise in tenant insolvencies.

The result has been a significantly reduced demand for business tenancies causing landlords to suffer lower rental incomes and increased rates for the empty properties, this is something tenants can exploit to their advantage.

KIRWANS solicitor Philip Gray replies to a comment left on his earlier post on the prospective reform of legal costs in libel actions, which can be found here.

Simon - Thank you for your comments. Dealing with your first point, the principal of proportionality implies that unless there is good reason, costs should not exceed the value of a claim.

Of course there are a number of reasons why it may be just to allow costs to exceed the value of the claim, a good example being libel actions, where the claimant is primarily concerned with vindicating her reputation rather than receiving limited damages.

A RECENT decision by the High Court which will affect bloggers everywhere was handed by Mr Justice Eady last month.

This was the judge, you may recall, who awarded Max Mosley £60,000 plus costs in his privacy claim against News Group Newspapers, thereby incurring the wrath of many journalists.

Well this time Mr Justice Eady has come down on the side of a newspaper, The Times, after a blogger applied to Court for an injunction restraining the paper from exposing his identity.

THE JACKSON family are world famous for their music, but it's Michael Jackson's lawsuits and civil litigation claims which have kept them in the spotlight in recent years.

A few days ago there was speculation that Michael Jackson hadn't written a will and his parents made a quick application to get control over his estate.

However, Michael Jackson's lawyer, John Branca holds a will that appoints himself and John McCain, a music executive, as co-executors of Michael Jackson's estate.

Paul Hunt discusses how it could be decision time for prenuptial agreements in the UK

FOR the first time, a case involving the enforceability of a pre-nuptial agreement has been to the highest court in the UK, the House of Lords.

The case, which originated in the Isle of Man, brought to wider attention the growing pressure to move towards a situation in which such agreements become binding.