Finance

Litigation is not a “blank cheque” and divorcing people cannot behave on the basis that they are bound to be reimbursed for their costs, a leading family law judge has warned.

The High Court has ruled that a partner in a law firm who paid himself £16,500 after he had left the firm and was “effectively competing with it” breached his director’s duties.

A “disastrous IT failure” suffered by a law firm’s biggest client tipped it over the edge into administration and a pre-pack sale to fast-growing national firm Taylor Rose TTKW.

A former partner of a London firm that went into liquidation has lost his bid to strike out Barclays Bank’s claim to enforce a guarantee he provided to cover a loan and overdraft.

Knights Group – the Staffordshire-based law firm that listed in June – has secured bank funding to support its strategy to complete at least three acquisitions by April 2020.

A client who received a mistaken payment of £177,000 from a law firm and only paid back £144,000 has failed to overturn a judgment in default.

A personal injury law firm has lost its appeal against a High Court ruling that dismissed its £4.5m claim over referrals from an insurer that did not materialise.

A QC fined more than £1m for the late payment of both income and inheritance tax over several years has had the sanction reduced by 80%.

Insolvencies in the legal sector are set to double this year if trends seen in the first quarter of 2018 continue, indicating a possible downturn in the fortunes of law firms, it has been claimed. The figures also indicate that law firms may be waiting too long before seeking help.

The risk of solicitors being landed with hefty VAT bills for electronic property searches has become a reality for at least one law firm, which has now received a demand from HM Revenue & Customs for tens of thousands of pounds. It has heightened the call for the tax treatment of postal and electronic searches to be made consistent.

A payment processor has taken the place of conveyancers in handling the finances on completion day in what has been claimed to be the UK’s first fully digital mortgage settlement. It could spell the end to clients waiting with the removal van in the afternoon for money to be transferred between lawyers.

Small and mid-sized law firms need to accept that lower levels of profitability are becoming the “new normal”, it was claimed yesterday. Their income is also falling, with firms of 11-25 partners recording the biggest drop last year – 11% – compared to only 1% for sole practitioners.

The number of qualified accountants’ reports due to rule breaches has fallen by two-thirds since the rules were changed in 2015, but the amount then being investigated for possible rule breaches has tripled, it has emerged. A handful of them have led to regulatory action as a result.

Profit per equity partner is down by 10%, although other performance indicators are up, according to an influential benchmarking report of SME law firms, published today. However, although PEP was down – from £120,000 last year to £108,000 – median fees per equity partner were up by an inflation-busting 5.4% to £539,000 last year.

Twice as many large City law firms had adopted ‘agile working’ policies by the start of 2018 as had a year earlier, and have been quicker than non-law businesses to embrace artificial intelligence technology, according to a survey about office use. Between them, the top 100 firms – when ranked by office floorspace in London – spend a total of £495m per annum on rent.