News

In a cautionary tale for public speakers everywhere, a law professor has apologised after a microphone caught him telling a student to "fuck off". Daniel Capra, an adjunct professor at the prestigious Columbia Law School in New York City, inadvertently muttered profanity directly into his microphone

Dear Editor, As Thomas Ross notes in yesterday’s Scottish Legal News, the current common law requires provocation in a murder case to take the form of sexual infidelity or physical violence. Mr Ross sought comments on the Scottish Law Commission’s provisional view that the partial defenc

The Supreme Court has rejected two unionist legal challenges to the lawfulness of the Northern Ireland Protocol. One of the two challenges, which were heard together last year, was brought by a group of senior unionist politicians led by Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister and inclu

In her piece on media coverage of the Scottish government’s proposed gender-recognition reform  (1 February 2023), Gwyneth King criticises those who have pointed out that women’s organisations which signed a statement in support of the Scottish government’s policy are recipien

Scotland's bottle deposit return scheme could result in an unlawful trade barrier with the rest of the UK, Aidan O'Neill KC has said. The initiative, due to launch in August, aims to boost recycling by means of a 20p deposit on single-use drinks bottles and cans.

The number of companies filing for administration in Scotland fell by a quarter in 2022 despite rising inflation, weaker trade and geopolitical uncertainty continuing to put businesses under pressure. Analysis of notices in The Gazette by Interpath Advisory reveals that a total of 32 companies fell

Louise Shiels discusses an English case in which the First Tier Tribunal Property Chamber issued what is likely to be the first remediation contribution order under section 124 of the Building Safety Act 2022. The application was made by 18 leaseholders of a high-rise self-contained block of fl

CMS has advised HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH (HIMA) on its acquisition of the entire issued share capital of Sella Limited and its subsidiaries, including Sella Controls (Sella), from the company’s management shareholders. Headquartered in Bruehl, Germany, HIMA is a provider of safety-related au

A judge of the Upper Tribunal for Scotland has quashed an eviction order following an appeal by the tenants of a property in Armadale after finding that the First-tier Tribunal had wrongly classed the tenancy as a private residential tenancy. Siblings Gerard and Katrine Boyle sought to challenge the

Dear Editor, On 23 Jan 2023 you reported that Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) were standing at their lowest number (360) over the preceding eight years which had averaged 560 Orders per annum.

Dr Mitchell Lennan (AUCEL, ACCPIL) and Dr Stephanie Switzer (University of Strathclyde, Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance) have published an open access article on the recently negotiated World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies in The International Journal of

Children as young as 12 will be allowed to wield ninja-style throwing stars under new legislation approved by a US state legislature. A bill approved by the Indiana Senate in a 48–1 vote would overturn the state's current outright ban on throwing stars, sometimes known as shurikens.

Aberdein Considine has made a number of senior promotions across the firm. Five lawyers have been promoted to the position of senior solicitor, with a further three promotions to associate.

An English judge who alleged that she had been bullied and in one case physically assaulted by her colleagues is to receive a £50,000 payout as part of a settlement agreed with the Ministry of Justice. Judge Kalyani Kaul KC, a Crown Court judge, launched legal proceedings in 2019 against the M

Experts from the legal sector and beyond are being urged to get involved in work to shape Scots law and legal practice. Thirty-two of the Law Society of Scotland's 57 committees and sub-committees are looking for new committee members and conveners.