Price-Fixing – Refund for Football Shirts
Emmetts Solicitors - 10/04/2008

The first ‘class action’ brought in the UK regarding price-fixing has been settled, with one of the culprits – who colluded in keeping the price of replica football kit artificially high – agreeing to compensate customers who can prove that they purchased one of the football shirts that was in point.

Following an action brought by the consumer watchdog ‘Which?’, retailer JJB Sports has agreed to pay compensation to the hundreds of customers who sued them. These customers will receive £20 each from the retailer.

The retailer has also agreed to refund £10 to any of its customers who can produce a receipt for the purchase of one of the shirts, which are England, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Celtic and Chelsea shirts bought between 2000 and 2001.

The court case follows the levying of fines totalling £17 million by the Competition Commission, in 2003, against JJB, Manchester United, Allsports, Umbro and the Football Association, for fixing the prices of football shirts.

If you have one of these shirts and can find the original receipt, you should be able to obtain the £10 merely by taking it to your local branch of JJB Sports.

More recently, it has been announced that people who inform on those operating cartels may be eligible for rewards of up to £100,000.

In Brief: Modernising the Courts Means More Wigs
Emmetts Solicitors - 07/04/2008

The Government always seems to be introducing some sort of ‘modernising’ initiative or other and in recent years the legal profession has had to deal with a great number of changes aimed at modernising the law.

One very curious form of ‘modernisation’ was introduced recently when solicitor advocates were given the right (previously reserved for barristers) to wear wigs in court when members of the Bar would ordinarily be allowed to wear them. This ruling will mean that solicitor advocates will be able to ‘wig up’ when appropriate in the Magistrates’, Crown and County Courts.

The ruling is aimed at removing what was described as ‘an unjustified advantage’ for the Bar.

Emmetts update:
Online payment facilities added for clients.
2nd April 2008

For the convenience of our clients, online payments can now be made in relation to certain types of transaction. This adds to the existing payment methods available to clients, meaning that clients can now pay legal deposits and fees by all major credit cards, eCheques, bank transfers, cheque and cash. For more details click here

Have you made a will?
Helen Loveless, Mail on Sunday

MILLIONS of people who fail to make a will are putting their families and dependants at financial risk.
Disturbing new figures from the voluntary organisation Will Aid reveal that nearly 50% of people die without a valid will. And an astonishing three quarters of those aged under 44 have not made a will.
Will Aid, which was set up by solicitors and leading charities, aims to encourage people to make wills by offering a free service.
Customers will be asked to donate between £35 to £95 to charities supporting the initiative.
Many people do not realise that if they die intestate - without a will - part or all of their estate, including their house less outstanding mortgage, could go to the Crown. The Treasury collected £15 million from intestate wills last year.

Accident Group Settlement
1st February 2008

Manchester-based solicitors Rowe Cohen and a raft of other personal injury firms have come to a settlement in The Accident Group (TAG) litigation.
The dispute, which some commentators said could have put scores of law firms out of business, came to an end when an agreement was struck with insurers Winterthur and National Insurance and Guarantee (NIG) yesterday (31 January).
The Swiss insurance giant Winterthur launched claims against 500 personal injury solicitors after claims that accident group TAG collapsed in April 2003.
TAG had run up debts of more than £100m prior to going out of business. The debts arose after the company initiated around 200,000 claims through an aggressive recruitment drive of victims.
Winterthur alleged that TAG's referral law firms deliberately passed cases that would fail to the claims group. This lead to Winterthur making claims for negligence and repayment of the accident investigation fee, known as the AIL fee.


Porton Down veterans agree settlement
31 January 2008
Lawyers acting for 359 of the Porton Down test veterans have announced a £3 million settlement with the Ministry of Defence. The tests were designed to ensure that UK could respond to a chemical weapons attack during the Cold War.
Veterans minister Derek Twigg issued an apology on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, accepting that life and health of participants in the trials may have been put at risk.
The Porton Down Veterans Group was represented by Leigh Day and Co and Thomas Snell & Passmore.
Martyn Day, senior partner of Leigh Day and Co, said: “The treatment of the veterans was simply appalling.
“However, today’s settlement and apology will undoubtedly go some way to healing the wounds that this episode caused.”

From The Sunday Times
January 20, 2008
Five ways the banks fleece us

Customers face higher current account fees as banks prepare to unveil bumper profits
Clare Francis

Britain’s high-street banks have sneakily raised the cost of their current accounts this year, despite a High Court showdown with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), in an effort to squeeze more profits from customers.

The news comes as banks are expected to announce bumper results in the coming weeks. The “Big Five” – Barclays, Halifax Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest – will report staggering profits of £39.05 billion for 2007, up from £37.5 billion the previous year, according to Brewin Dolphin, a stockbroker. In a time of global market turmoil this demonstrates how much the banks milk customers.

As the banks defended their overdraft charges in a High Court action brought by the OFT last week, new research revealed that they were already clawing back the potential costs of any clampdown on their fees.

Nationwide, HSBC, Smile and Intelligent Finance have all quietly introduced current-account charges that will net them an estimated £173m in extra revenue over the next 12 months, according to research by Moneysupermarket, a comparison site.

To read the rest of the article click here

HIP's are GO! - 27th November 2007

Anyone selling a residential property after December 14 will need to purchase a home information pack, the government said on Thursday.
Yvette Cooper, housing minister, told parliament that early monitoring of the scheme showed the staggered roll-out of sellers’ packs had gone smoothly.
The announcement was met with relief from pack sellers, who claim the delayed roll-out earlier this year has cost their industry millions of pounds. But long-term critics of the scheme said first-time buyers would suffer.
Hips – which cost on average between £300 and £350 ($622 and $725) – are already a mandatory requirement for properties with three bedrooms or more, which make up more than half the market.
However a survey of estate agents found that most want Hips to be abolished, saying they have disrupted business. Estate agents also reported ignorance of the scheme among the public.
Numerous trade bodies have criticised Hips, saying they complicate rather than simplify the sales process.
Figures released last month by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed a 26 per cent fall in the number of three-bedroom or larger properties coming on to the market in October 2007, compared with the previous year.
The introduction of Hips wiped out a significant portion of speculative sellers, Rics said.
The market for smaller homes could go “off the scale” as a result of the scheme being extended, Rics said, leaving first-time buyers priced even further out of the market.
But the government cited an independent report by Europe Economics, published on Thursday, which found no evidence of any impact of Hips on transactions or prices.
Sellers will be able to market properties without a Hip until the middle of next year as long as they have applied for one, the government said on Thursday.
The packs contain standard searches, evidence of title, leasehold information and an energy performance certificate that rates a property’s environmental credentials on a scale of A to G.

This article is courtesy and subject to copyright of The Financial Times

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