News

Responsibility for the fatal accident inquiry (FAI) system would be removed from the Crown Office under new proposals from the Scottish Liberal Democrats. The FAI system has been plagued by delays, with investigations taking up to a decade to complete. The party commits to overhauling the "broken sy

Shepherd and Wedderburn’s corporate finance team advised on deals with an aggregate value of £7.1 billion in 2020. The team advised on 75 corporate finance transactions globally (excluding deals for the banking sector) – an increase of 18 per cent on its £6 billion aggregate

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A new right to welfare, housing and healthcare appointments for prisoners has been proposed by the Scottish Liberal Democrats in its manifesto published today. Research by the party revealed that Scotland's prisons are completely overwhelmed, with the population reaching record levels in recent year

Quis provides some advice on 'court craft'. The sum of £54,000 of public money for legal advice. That might not seem too extreme. This was the figure paid by the civil service in Scotland for “external preparation” for the Salmond inquiry, despite there being 139 lawyers employed i

Polish human rights chief Adam Bodnar has been ordered to leave his post by the country's top court. Mr Bodnar, widely regarded as a nuisance to Poland's authoritarian ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, was appointed as Commissioner for Human Rights with the support of opposition parties in 2015.

LLB student Lucy Mackay has won the Glasgow Caledonian University STAR Award for Student of the Year 2021. The STAR Awards are an annual celebration event held by the Students’ Association to recognise and celebrate the hard work of volunteers and student groups.

Marks & Spencer has lodged legal proceedings against Aldi over its iconic "Colin the Caterpillar" cake. The luxury retailer claims its discount rival has violated its intellectual property with its "Cuthbert the Caterpillar" cake.

An Irish airline pilot who was allegedly forced into self-employment and began using a payment scheme regarded by the tax authority as tax avoidance as a result has failed to challenge the effectiveness of a charge imposed on him for taxes on outstanding loans technically due by him under the scheme

Scottish Legal News has been featuring nominations for the top Session Case to accompany a survey run by the Scottish Council of Law Reporting on the occasion of the law reports' bicentenary. It is thought that Session Cases is the longest continuous set of law reports still in production in th

The Lord Advocate, James Wolffe QC, details his top Session Case: the infamous Moorov v HM Advocate 1930 JC 68. Vote for your top three Session Cases here. Sometimes, a legal rule is identified by the name of the case with which it is associated. In Scots law, none is more famous than the Mooro

Professors James Chalmers, Fiona Leverick and Vanessa Munro address the 'not proven' debate with clarity and precision. In a recent piece in Scottish Legal News, Tony Lenehan argues that “the argument behind abolishing the 'not proven' verdict must be that juries can’t be trusted to conv

Turnover in the UK legal profession grew to £3.1 billion in February, an 11 per cent year-on-year increase and a four per cent increase on the previous month. The latest Index of Services data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) paints a healthy picture for the legal sector a year int

Anderson Strathern has hired European dealmaker Max Scharbert as a director in its corporate practice. Mr Scharbert is a former partner at Rooney Nimmo and is the longstanding chairman of the German British Chamber of Industry & Commerce in Scotland, and is qualified in German, English and Scots

Criminal firm MTM Defence Lawyers has appointed a new senior solicitor as it sees an upsurge in domestic abuse cases, which now account for around 33 per cent of its caseload. Andrew Seggie has joined MTM at a time when private client cases are continuing to grow in number and complexity.