Law in Practice

Will Brexit reduce London’s dominance as a litigation centre? Michael McParland QC examines the potential impact on use of English jurisdiction and choice of law agreements  

‘One of the attractions of English law as a legal system of choice in commercial matters is its stability and continuity…’ Wood v Sureterm Direct Ltd  [2017] UKSC 24, para [15] 

Google, Facebook, Twitter and other intermediaries increasingly face a broadly united front of protest. Is it time to regulate? asks Richard Spearman QC  

Under the headline ‘Facebook publishing child porn’, the Times of 13 April 2017 reported on its front page: ‘The social media company failed to take down dozens of images and videos that were “flagged” to its moderators, including one showing an Islamic State beheading, several violently paedophilic cartoons, a video of an apparent sexual assault on a child and propaganda posters glorifying recent terrorist attacks in London and Egypt.’ 

David Anderson QC examines the post-Brexit implications for national security and identifies potential fault lines for future security cooperation with the EU  

As jihadi fighters from Europe return from the battlefields of Syria, sometimes by complex overland routes, the advantages of a coordinated European response to terrorism seem obvious. 

Following the triggering of Art 50, Anneli Howard assesses the possible ramifications of the Supreme Court’s Miller ruling, other associated litigation and key next steps for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU  

The British are famous for their unwritten constitution, which has evolved over the last 800 years.  

The new principle introduced by the Supreme Court to govern civil claims (other than for restitution) affected by illegality is likely to result in fewer claims being barred, argues Nicholas Strauss QC in the second part of this two-part article  

This article examines how the Supreme Court has resolved the fundamental difference of view (apparent in several recent cases in the Supreme Court) between supporters of, respectively, the rule-based principle expressed by Lord Mansfield in Holman v Johnson  (1775) 1 Cowp 341, 343, and a more flexible rule based on an assessment of all the relevant factors in any given case and proportionality.  

With such legal uncertainty in the financial markets, how can the courts assist? Lord Justice Briggs explains the ‘certainty principles’ slowly gaining ground and efforts to mitigate the complex snakes and ladders  

Modern, sophisticated economies are becoming increasingly vulnerable to legal uncertainty, which can affect the financial markets in two main ways.  

Information from the Brexit Working Group 

With an encyclopaedic knowledge of criminal law, intellectual rigour and practitioner focus, Professor David Ormerod QC is driving ambitious law reform. David Wurtzel meets the universally respected Law Commissioner  

I met with Professor David Ormerod QC, one of the four Law Commissioners, in a tiny room in the Ministry of Justice building. 

Don’t be intimidated by e-working: the advantages are manifold and anyone can get up to speed with a few hours’ practice, writes Paul Hart in this how-to guide  

Oh, the irony, you may think, as we sit on the boundary between the old world and the new.  

Money or property transferred pursuant to an illegal transaction is recoverable following the seminal case of Patel v Mirza. Nicholas Strauss QC examines the case and its implications in the first of a two-part feature  

Most lawyers remember, even if little else, Lord Mansfield’s dictum in 1775 ‘ex turpi causa non oritur actio... potior est conditio defendentis ’ and many are aware of the ensuing 240 years of chaotic case law resulting, as Lord Sumption has said, from the courts’ distaste for applying their own rule.