A third of the first tranche of child abuse compensation claims against the former MP Greville Janner was abandoned in the High Court yesterday, reports Sean O’Neill.

Three claimants – two men and a woman – who allege Janner abused them in childhood dropped their claims against his estate because of a failure to serve documents in the time allotted by the court.

The three were clients of Affinity Law, a law firm in Leicester, which said they would continue to seek damages from Leicestershire county council.

Six other claimants, represented by the law firm Slater & Gordon, are continuing their action against the £1.7 million estate of the former Labour MP for Leicester West who died in December 2015 before a criminal trial of the allegations could take place.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is conducting an investigation into the allegations against Janner and has been told that 33 people have claimed that they were sexually abused by him.

Daniel Janner, QC, of N8 Chambers in Birmingham, said his family rejected all the allegations against his late father and would fight to clear his name. “We welcome the fact that three of the nine claimants have thrown in the towel and we await to see what will happen with the others,” he said.

In addition to proceedings before court and the inquiry, Leicestershire police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission are conducting separate criminal inquiries arising from the Janner case.

Fraudsters have contacted up to 500 solicitors’ firms in an attempt to infiltrate technology systems and steal client details, the profession’s watchdog warned yesterday.

They have sent a rash of emails to firms saying their services are required. After the firms respond, the fraudsters send attachments or links to websites that contain malware, which allows the scammers to control or undermine IT systems. According to a warning from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, some of the emails relate to the sale of a property or the purchase of a business.

The authority is especially concerned that high street law firms are being targeted with emails that purport to come from “Margaret” and “Mary Smollins”, from the email address “margaretgreen220@gmail.com”.

“While genuine potential clients might indeed send information in this way,” the authority said, “law firms should be wary of the risks of malware infecting their IT systems, and take action appropriate to their business.”

Britain’s judges should engage the public directly and speak out about their roles, the lord chancellor has argued in part of her fightback against critics who argued that she had neglected her constitutional role of defending the judiciary.

Liz Truss said it was “a myth” that serving judges were prohibited from speaking to the media about their functions and responsibilities. She encouraged judges at all levels of the bench to speak out as doing so was one way of “ensuring we have an independent judiciary”.

The justice secretary was speaking at Middle Temple Hall as part of legal profession commemorations of International Women’s Day. She acknowledged that judges were prohibited from speaking about cases in which they were directly involved. But she said judges should “speak in public about their jobs – about what they do and why their roles are so important”.

Truss stopped short of maintaining that the constitutional role of the lord chancellor as defender of the judiciary was antiquated and should be dropped. She was criticised last November when she was viewed as being slow to defend the three High Court judges after they were criticised in the media for their ruling against the government in the first Brexit court hearing.

The justice secretary told the Middle Temple Hall audience that she was “absolutely committed to defending the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law”.

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Human rights campaigners predicted that South Africa’s move to revoke its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court would be short lived and that ministers would seek parliamentary approval for a permanent departure.

South African officials announced earlier this week that it had cancelled its exit from the Hague-based court after its domestic high court ruled that doing so breached the country’s constitution. Ministers advised the UN of their decision on Tuesday.

Mark Ellis, director of the International Bar Association, which is based in London, said that the move to cancel withdrawal was “a welcome reversal of its initial ill-advised and illegal pronouncement”. He cautioned that it was likely that the South African government would “seek the necessary parliamentary approval to permanently withdraw from the ICC”.

However, he went on to say: “There is now hope that members of parliament will rebuff that request and alternatively stand firm in support of the ICC and, subsequently, accountability for those who commit the most horrific atrocity crimes.

“South Africa should maintain its position in the international community as a country that strives for justice and the rule of law.”

A date with data destiny

The updated General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – one of those irritating bits of bureaucracy that Brexiteers complain about – is scheduled to come into force in May next year, writes Edward Fennell.

“The UK was one of the dissenting voices in negotiations about the regulations,” says Pulina Whitaker, a partner at the City of London office of US law firm Morgan Lewis. She reminds us that British officials were “particularly vocal about the onerous impact on UK businesses” that the measures were viewed as imposing.

Nonetheless the regulation will be firmly in place by the time the UK bids farewell to the EU possibly in the spring/summer of 2019.

That single market again

So once the UK has brushed the European dust from its shoes, will this regulation be cast into the celebratory bonfire of the regulations? Probably not. Despite quitting the EU, says Whitaker, “it seems unlikely that the UK will reduce the extent of data protection obligations on UK businesses”.

Why? The UK’s data protection authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, has already advised that UK data protection standards will need to be equivalent to those in the EU regulations if the country wishes to trade with the European single market after leaving the bloc.

“The UK is unlikely to want to be seen as being out of step with the rest of Europe which will … remain a significant trading partner,” surmises Whitaker.

“UK organisations with European offices or which offer goods or services to European consumers will continue to be subject to the [the regulations] post-Brexit as regards those European operations. [Hence] the government will need to enact domestic data privacy legislation to replace the GDPR when the UK exits the EU.”

Data transfer

A failure to retain EU standards would be likely to reduce the current level of data privacy protections afforded to individuals. It could be argued that it is in everyone's interests to keep them as most UK businesses are likely to need to transfer personal data to Europe and also to other countries outside the EU such as the US.

While the UK remains part of the EU, there are restrictions against transferring personal data without consent from the individual, other than to certain “adequate” countries such as Canada or Switzerland, or unless the business has in place a legally permissible mechanism, such as model clauses or binding corporate rules.

British ministers will need to decide if the UK is to retain the same restrictions for cross-border transfers or adopt an alternative. In particular, after Brexit, we know that the EU-US privacy shield will no longer apply to the UK and neither will protections for EU citizens under the umbrella agreement or the Judicial Redress Act to enforce privacy breaches in the US courts.

Feeling inadequate

The UK will need to decide on whether it will adopt a similar model to the privacy shield for data transfers from the UK to the US. The UK is also likely to apply to the European Commission for a decision of “adequacy”, which will allow EU countries to transfer personal data to the UK without restrictions.

“Obtaining an adequacy decision,” says Whitaker, “depends on whether the government has passed laws which are materially similar to the GDPR.”

Another change implemented by the GDPR is an obligation to notify a data protection authority within 72 hours of becoming aware of a breach – and in certain circumstances the individuals affected by the breach.

“The government will need to decide if it will pass a data breach notification law, either similar to the strict GDPR requirement or one adapted to our approach of pro-business legal requirements,” says Whitaker.

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