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| Tuesday November 21 2017 |
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By Frances Gibb and Jonathan Ames
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This morning’s must-read of all things legal, including news, comment and gossip. For more in-depth coverage, read ...
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Subscribe to The Brief Premium
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Today
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60% OF MARRIED BRITISH MUSLIMS UNPROTECTED BY LAW
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Divorce reforms would strengthen marriage, says ex-judge
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Electoral watchdog reopens Brexit vote funding investigation
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Law reform would ‘destroy gig economy’
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Justice ministry budget slashed by a third
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Blue Bag diary: Defending the rule of law … on a tenner a day
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Analysis – divorce: Race is on for a London deal
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Analysis -- divorce: Uncovering hidden assets
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Special focus: Cartel actions start a party for funders
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| Tweet us @timeslaw with your views. |
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Event
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Premium
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Tax crackdown – fairness and avoidance
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Times Law and Brief Premium are holding a timely event to analyse the mounting controversy over tax – who should pay it and how much should they pay? Please join us on December 4, 2017 at The Times’s offices to hear leading figures in the tax field debate the issues. On the platform will be: Sir Edward Garnier QC, former solicitor-general; Dame Margaret Hodge MP, former chairwoman of the House of Commons public accounts committee; Malcolm Gammie QC, tax barrister at One Essex Court; Christopher Groves, tax partner at City of London law firm Withers; and Alexi Mostrous, head of investigations at The Times
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Story of the Day
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60% of Muslim married couples ‘unprotected by British law’
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Two thirds of Muslims who married in Britain are not legally wed as their ceremonies are not recognised in law, a survey has found.
Couples who have had the traditional religious wedding ceremony of the nikah but not a civil ceremony at a register officer have no legal protections under statute.
A tenth of those surveyed are in polygamous relationships, although about a third of those had not agreed to it. Many were also unaware that they did not have the same rights and protections afforded to couples who are legally married.
The figures are highlighted in [ital] The Truth about Muslim Marriage, a documentary to be broadcast tonight on Channel 4.
Without the rights and protections of a legally recognised marriage, Muslim women cannot seek any kind of award or maintenance in the family court if their relationship breaks down. Instead they would have to try to make a claim in the civil courts for a share of the assets, which is time consuming and costly.
As many as 200,000 couples are thought to be living in unregistered marriages in Britain, which has a Muslim population of about 2.7 million. The survey of 923 women in 14 British cities reveals that while 78 per cent wanted their marriages to be legally valid, 61 per cent only had a nikah marriage, meaning that their union was not legally recognised.
However, two-thirds of those who had not had a civil marriage ceremony had no plans to have one in the future so as to give their union legal status.
Some 28 per cent of those women with only a nikah marriage were unaware that it did not give them the same rights and protections as a legally recognised marriage.
The survey suggests that imams could be play a greater role in informing couples of the legal difference between a nikah and a civil ceremony. Aina Khan, a family lawyer and specialist in Islamic law at the national law firm Duncan Lewis, told the programme that although many faiths were affected, the law put Muslims at a particular disadvantage because most did not get married in a registered place of worship, which is one of the criteria for a marriage to be legally recognised.
The majority of Muslims preferred to get married at home or in a rented hotel or hall, she said, adding that the problem was growing and the government was failing to do anything to address it.
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Special focus: Third-party litigation funding
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Premium
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Cartel actions start a party for funders
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Litigation financers are reaping the rewards of group actions and global expansion, but it is not all money for old pink ribbon
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News round-up
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Divorce reforms would strengthen marriage, says ex-judge
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Divorce law reform is needed to promote the attractiveness of marriage, a former senior judge has said.
Sir Paul Coleridge (pictured), chairman of the Marriage Foundation and a High Court judge for 14 years, said that reforming the fault-based laws would not undermine marriage.
In a letter to [ital] The Times published today, he hits back at critics of the proposal, saying that the idea is not to make divorce easier.
Current laws enable people to move “with indecent haste” to obtain a divorce within three months, he says, claiming that a reformed system would force couples to “take stock” before entering a lifelong commitment or considering separation. Such a system would promote the “attractiveness of marriage as the norm for parental relationships”, he says.
There is widespread support from judicial figures and the legal profession for reforming the law, which has been condemned as outdated and archaic.
The legislation also brings the legal system into disrepute, it is argued, because it encourages couples to lie and make dishonest allegations to get out of a marriage, fuelling acrimony and causing harm to children.
[ital] The Times and the Marriage Foundation are calling for reforms to the law across several fronts: an end to fault-based divorce; an overhaul of divorce settlements that moves away from “meal ticket for life” maintenance; statutory backing for pre-nuptial contracts; more rights for long-term cohabiting couples and civil partnerships for heterosexual couples.
Among senior figures to have backed one or more aspects of the reforms are: Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the former lord chancellor; Baroness Butler-Sloss, the former lord justice of appeal; Baroness Deech, former chairwoman of the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority; Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, a leading divorce solicitor; and Sir Alan Ward, the former lord justice of appeal.
Lawyers’ groups including Resolution, the 6,000-strong association of family solicitors and advice workers, and the Family Law Bar Association are also calling for reform.
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Electoral watchdog reopens Brexit vote funding investigation
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Electoral law officials have reopened an investigation into whether a fashion student breached campaign funding rules during the Brexit referendum.
The Electoral Commission said yesterday that it would investigate allegations that Darren Grimes, the Vote Leave campaign and the Veterans for Britain group breached campaign finance regulations.
A review of investigations by the commission had been carried out this year and resulted in no action being taken.
However, the commission said in a statement yesterday [mon] that “new information has come to light which, when considered alongside the information obtained previously, has given the commission reasonable grounds to suspect an offence may have been committed”.
Commission investigators will look at allegations that Grimes and the two organisations produced incorrect accounts of donations and expenditure. It will also investigate whether Vote Leave exceeded its spending limit in the referendum.
Records show that Vote Leave gave Grimes, 23, £625,000 in the days before the poll, making him one of the best-funded unofficial campaigners of the referendum.
Bob Posner, the commission’s legal counsel, said that there was a “significant public interest in being satisfied that the facts are known about Vote Leave’s spending on the campaign, particularly as it was a lead campaigner with a greater spending limit than any other campaigners on the Leave side”.
He continued: “Legitimate questions over the funding provided to campaigners risks causing harm to voters’ confidence in the referendum and it is therefore right that we investigate.”
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Justice ministry budget slashed by a third
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Reductions to the Ministry of Justice budget have significantly outpaced the average across Whitehall departments, with a total of 36 per cent of funding expected to have been cut between 2011 and 2019.
Dominic Raab, the justice minister, released the figures last week in a written answer to a question from Richard Burgon, Labour’s shadow justice secretary. Burgon had asked the ministry to produce figures for predicted continued budget cuts until 2021-22, but Raab said that they would not be set until the next spending review.
The austerity programme was started by David Cameron and George Osborne in 2010, with government departments having been expected to find at least 25 per cent savings over several years.
Responding to the latest figures, the Law Gazette, which is published by the Law Society, the body that represents solicitors in England and Wales, said that the figures would “dampen already faint hopes” of increased legal aid spending.
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Law reform would ‘destroy gig economy’
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Fining employers for falsely classifying workers as self-employed would significantly alter existing law and could lead to the destruction of the so-called gig economy, lawyers have warned.
A committee of MPs has published a draft bill that they say would “close the loopholes that allow irresponsible companies to underpay workers, avoid taxes and free-ride on our welfare system”.
The House of Commons work and pensions select committee, which produced the proposed legislation, claimed that imposing large fines on employers would ensure that “the risks of being caught outweigh the gains companies stand to make from illegal practices”.
Union figures welcomed the recommendations. Jason Moyer-Lee, the general-secretary of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, which has taken a series of claims to tribunals on behalf of gig economy workers, said the report was “definitely a step forward”.
He said that it “provides a refreshing focus on government enforcement of employment law in the so-called gig economy, something which is long overdue”.
However, the proposals met with strong opposition from some employment law specialists. Crowley Woodford, a partner at the City of London law firm Ashurst, said that they “would take a major step towards destroying the flexibility currently enjoyed by the gig economy”.
The lawyer added that the “twin effect” of creating worker-by-default status and increasing penalties for non-compliance would mean that “the current self-employed model of engagement with labour, already challenged through the courts, would not survive”.
Helen Murphie, a partner at the London law firm Royds Withy King, argued that the proposals would “mean an additional financial burden for some businesses who have flexible workforces, which in turn may mean a hike in prices for the consumer.
“Businesses will also face additional administrative and financial costs if they are obliged to provide written statement of terms, obligations and rights to workers in the future.”
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In Brief
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- Locke Lord brings in new London team after firm's ‘nightmare' record fine – Legal Week
- US Law schools forced to innovate to fight falling numbers – Financial Times
- Tennessee judge reprimanded for reducing jail time for inmates who received vasectomies—The Tennessean
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Analysis
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The race is on for a London divorce
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The capital is the go-to destination for those looking to secure the best payout from their wealthier spouse, writes Mark Harper
In the divorce forum shopping stakes, London fully deserves its reputation as the best jurisdiction for the economically weaker party, who could end up with a much better deal there than anywhere else.
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Read the full story
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What to do if your spouse hides assets during a divorce
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While it might be tempting to play detective by gathering evidence, you should leave it to the courts to force disclosure, writes Renato Labi
Many people lie in divorce proceedings — in some cases there is a lot to hide. Disclosures last year in the Panama Papers showed that the practice of sheltering and concealing assets from national tax authorities had become widespread. That practice can also serve to conceal assets from a divorcing spouse.
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Read the full story
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Tweet of the day
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| ok... please don't yell at me... but why is Charles Manson hated more than other serial killers? jw |
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@law_champagne
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Blue Bag
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Defending the rule of law … on a tenner a day
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Joe Egan, president of the Law Society, can take some comfort from the knowledge that he is not the only senior legal profession figure to be castigated for penny-pinching. Now the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law is catching some embarrassing flak for paying its interns the princely sum of a tenner a day.
The centre — launched in 2010 at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and named after Lord Bingham of Cornhill, former lord chief justice of England and Wales – holds itself out as promoting “the rule of law worldwide”.
However, as the Legal Cheek website points out, that will give little comfort to interns who are being offered daily remuneration that will probably not even cover travel and lunch expenses.
Last week it emerged that Egan was paying trainees at his Bolton high street law firm less than the society’s own recommended minimum salary.
Egan at least had the excuse that his firm’s business model had, in common with many others, been badly affected by the latest round of government cuts to legal aid eligibility. Not only that, but to keep the firm afloat he had imposed a pay-freeze on himself (although he still bags a tasty income from the rest of the profession during his year at Chancery Lane).
For its part, the Bingham Centre decided to blame semantics, putting its hands up and saying that the use of the word “interns” on its website was not entirely accurate and that a better word would be … “volunteers”.
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The Churn
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Ropes & Gray reshuffle washes up in London
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The naming of Julie Jones as the first chairwoman of Ropes & Gray, the old-school Boston law firm, has had gender diversity implications on this side of the pond.
Jones’s appointment has caused a reshuffle at the top of the firm, which has confirmed that Jane Rogers will become the first London representative on its policy committee. Rogers is a partner in the finance group at the firm’s City of London office, having moved to the UK from the Boston headquarters in 2010. She is co-head of the firm’s finance practice.
Ropes & Gray, which was founded by two Harvard University law school graduates in 1865, said that Jones would have to wait for two years before taking the top job while she serves as “chair-elect”. She will eventually take over from the chairman, Bradford Malt, when he retires.
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Quote of the day
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“How can that be right in 2017 that somebody is fired from their job without even knowing what they stand accused of?”
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Joanna Williams, academic and author of Women vs Feminism yesterday on Daily Politics on BBC Two weighs in on the sexual harassment debate.
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Read the full story
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