News

The BSB plays a central role in promoting diversity in the Bar through its work setting educational and training requirements, setting professional standards and handling complaints. This work is supported by the Equality and Diversity Committee which is responsible for progressing the BSB’s equality and diversity action plan and acting as a critical friend to the other committees. Following changes to the Equality and Diversity Committee’s terms of reference we are recruiting a new Chair, barrister and lay members for the Committee. 

Please see our advertisement later in this edition of Counsel for further information or contact: 

Marc Adams, the BSB’s Equality and Diversity Advisor at email: madams@barstandardsboard.org.uk or telephone 020 7611 1310. 

The Commission has adopted a largely positive report on the first 5 years of operation of Regulation 1/2003, which overhauled the procedural rules supporting the application of the EU’s antitrust Articles 81 and 82 TEC. See:
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/legislation/report_regulation_1_2003_en.pdf 

Mark McDonald, the founder of the London Innocence Project, received the Pro Bono Award at the Minority Lawyers’ Conference, in London in April, for his work in examining and preventing miscarriages of justice. McDonald, of 1 Pump Court, runs the Project along with a dedicated team of barristers and City Law School students. The Project team look at individual miscarriage of justice cases as well as distributing research reports.

The Lord Chief Justice has urged talented black and Asian lawyers to take up the challenge of judicial office. 

The judgment reconfirms the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC as a maximum harmonisation directive, holding that Member States may not adopt measures that are more restrictive, even in order to ensure a higher level of consumer protection. http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp09/aff/cp090031en.pdf 

The system for the appointment and selection of Queen’s  Counsel is working well in identifying outstanding advocates, Sir Duncan Nicol CBE has concluded. 

Following on from its White Paper of this time last year, DG Competition has been working on a proposal for a directive on antitrust damages, covering the range of issues consulted on, including collective redress. The proposal was expected to be adopted in May, but it seems that its premature leak in draft form may have affected that. However, the political and substantive debate is already underway. 

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas is to leave his post in June, and will take on the role of chair of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council in September.

The replies to the Commission consultation on this subject are now available on the Commission’s website: 

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/consulting_public/news_consulting_public_en.htm   

Meanwhile, the Legal Affairs Committee “JURI” of the EP adopted its own-initiative report on the file on 31 March, picking up on, inter alia, the Bar Council’s suggestion that consideration be given to the idea of introducing a form of Community provisional measure additional to those of national courts. 

This year’s Minority Lawyers’ Conference was chaired by Kim Hollis QC and sponsored by Eversheds Solicitors.