Eversheds Sutherland has ‘completed the transition of its operations in Russia’, the international firm announce this week, as its business services professionals and lawyers in the country are moving to newly generated firms.The firm, which had offices in St Petersburg and Moscow, reported in March that it ‘will not continue to operate in Russia given its government’s invasion of Ukraine’ and that its main priority was ‘to support our 50 colleagues in Russia and to work together to ensure an orderly transition’.Eversheds declared this week that its team in Russia introduced a new firm called Birch Legal, which will become its ‘preferred relationship firm in Russia, servicing the needs of our international clients’.Birch Legal will be managed by partner Mikhail Timonov who will be backed by his associated Yury Pugach, preceding the death of Victoria Goldman last month, who was in control of Eversheds’ Russian offices.‘We wish the circumstances leading to the creation of Birch Legal were different, nonetheless we wish our friends and former colleagues in Russia well for their new endeavour,’ Eversheds announced in a statement.Eversheds was among  a number of international firms to exit Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, with Baker McKenzie also announcing last month that its operations in Moscow and St Petersburg will ‘become an independent law firm’.Dentons also reported it would ‘separate from its offices in Moscow and St Petersburg’, which will operate as an independent firm, while DLA Piper noted it will transfer its Russian business to its team in the country.

On its defeat in a trademark case, a Muslim dating service has become the latest litigant to reveal the result of a draft judgment before it is handed down by sending an embargoed press release to journalists.Muzmatch’s founder has received a rebuke from the courts for breaching embargoes on draft judgments in recent months, with lawyers representing the Duke of Sussex, Swiss bank Banque Pictet and the Welsh government’s law officer.It was found last month that an infringed trademark was held by Match Group, by the online matchmaking service for Muslims, the company behind dating app Tinder. Muzmatch’s founder Shahzad Younas offered to provide an embargoed press release revealing that his company had lost its ‘fight with Match Group to keep its name’ to 10 journalists, before the day when ruling was handed down and then sent the press release to ‘various journalists who had agreed to respect the embargo’ he had imposed. Nicholas Caddick QC, sitting as a High Court judge, said in a ruling today that Younas also had email exchanges and phone conversations on this.Caddick also added that, Younas on a witness statement, said he ‘wholeheartedly apologizes to the court’ and explained that he ‘honestly believed that he could communicate the outcome of the case and share a press release with journalists provided it was done on a strictly confidential basis’.The judge found Younas had committed a ‘serious breach of the embargo’ but accepted that it was ‘a genuine mistake’, saying it is ‘appropriate to accept Mr Younas’ apology as resolving the matter’ and also noted that Match does not intend to initiate formal contempt proceedings. He also added that, he does not see the need for the court to do so of its own initiative whether to punish Mr Younas for his past actions or to educate other litigants as to the very serious nature of the embargo.With indicating his preliminary view that ‘it may well be appropriate’ to order costs on an indemnity basis, the judge will determine Match’s application for its costs of dealing with the issue of the embargo breach at a hearing later this month.

Lawyer-bashing has been a long standing national pastime, with criticism regularly formulated by politicians and the press on ‘fat cat’ defence barristers and ‘activist’ legal aid lawyers for having the resolute to carry out their job.However, a new target has manifested – the supposed ‘enablers’ of oligarchs, whose cash was mostly welcomed in London until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.A panel of eminent investigative journalists queued up at the Frontline Club in London this week to contest claimant media lawyers as the pressure continues to rise.A few firms are ‘becoming the servants of the super-rich’ and using litigation in an attempt to ‘silence a journalist for years’, noted Clare Rewcastle Brown, whose work revealed corruption in Malaysia resulted in her being sued in London and elsewhere.A reporter at Tortoise Media, Paul Caruana Galizia, whose mother Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in Malta in 2017, noted that London lawyers are offering a ‘one-stop oligarch shop’ and, in some cases, are actually ‘acting for an organised crime group’.An officer of the court also joined in, with Adelaide Lopez – a senior associate at Wiggin who represented journalist Catherine Belton recently – stating that ‘naming and shaming … is probably going to be more effective than anything the SRA is going to do’.When questioned whether the Solicitors Regulation Authority has the ‘capacity or the competence’ to impose potential new requirements to stop so-called ‘lawfare’, Lopez and fellow lawyer Charlie Holt – the UK campaigns manager for English PEN – both answered: ‘No.’

An outbreak of fraud associated with crypto assets has sparked a joint effort by five professional services firms to highlight such matters in front of the courts. Crypto-related fraud reached a peak in 202, with banned addresses that received an estimated US$14bn throughout the course of the year, making it a 79% increase from the previous year.According to the five firms however, the amount of claims brought before courts regarding these losses are still low, partly due to limited funding options for otherwise worthy lower-value claims. The firms created a joint triage system for the first stage of assessing claims. Deserving claims will be evaluated and financed by litigation funder Sandton Capital, which has allocated £50m for crypto-related litigation.Other members of the consortium consist of the recovery specialist Asset Reality, accountancy Grant Thornton UK, Outer Temple Chambers and city firm Rahman Ravelli. Barrister at Outer Temple Chambers, Justina Stewart, commented: ‘This is a real opportunity to push the boundaries of the law by working symbiotically with true experts. All too often, potentially meritorious crypto fraud claims don’t get off the ground because of lack of funding and joined-up thinking between real specialists.’

New guidance from the judiciary on electronic bundles bring focus to the difficulty for litigants in person to navigate the court system, the Law Society has stated.In an announcement published this week, senior judges revealed that electronic bundles in the financial remedies court had shifted from being moderately rare to verging on universal in the past two years, which they reported to be an ‘excellent outcome’. However, they had been notified that guidance on electronic bundle preparation for litigants in person needed a ‘modest degree of clarification’.The guidance outlines that the duty to provide forms ES1 and ES2 was as much relevant to litigants in person as it does to represented parties. ES1 is a case summary. ES2 records assets, liabilities and income values.‘We recognise that there may be circumstances when the applicant LIP simply has insufficient IT ability to prepare the bundle. If this happens than that person should contact the court and explain the difficulty as far as possible in advance of the relevant court hearing,’ the guidance says. ‘Where possible that person should suggest a practical way of overcoming the problem, which may be that the respondent should be invited to prepare the bundle. A respondent in this situation is encouraged to offer assistance where possible.’If neither party has adequate IT ability to put together a bundle, ‘then the court will have to do its best to find a solution which overcomes the problem’.The Law Society welcomed the guidance, but I. Stephanie Boyce, president, noted that it emphasised the continuation of problems encountered by litigants in person attempting to navigate the court system.Ministry of Justice data reveals that the number of cases where both parties were regarded was 41% in the three months foregoing the legal aid slashes. Towards the end of 2021, it was 21%.Boyce stated: ‘Often forced to represent themselves due to a lack of legal aid, litigants in person can struggle to understand court procedures and their legal entitlements. This struggle can be exacerbated by the increased digitisation of court processes, which the courts system must ensure doesn’t leave people behind. Providing legal aid for early advice in family cases would help divert litigants from the court system towards mediation and the early resolution of their cases.’The Ministry of Justice has been approached to make comment. In August 2020, the department revealed an extra £3.1m to help sustain litigants in person to add to the £9m invested since 2015 through its current support strategy for litigants in person.

To support his request for civil servants to return to office working, this week the minister for government efficiency, Jacob Rees-Mogg, published a league table supposedly showing the amount of civil servants who worked from the office from the 4 April. According to the table’s figures, only 48% of MoJ personnel were present at their desks in Petty France and elsewhere during that week. This places the MoJ fifth out of 19 government departments, being only behind the Department for International Trade (73%), the Department for Health and Social Care (72%), Rees-Mogg’s own Cabinet Office (69%) and the Ministry of Defence (67%). The MoJ divides its ranking with the Department for Transport and HM Treasury. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (31%), the Department for Work and Pensions (27%) and the Department for Education (25%) sit at the bottom of the table.It is considered that the MoJ’s attendance record is particularly good, taking into account that the office’s lack of lifestyle boosting attractions are currently being added by private sector firms wishing to encourage staff to return to their desks.

The Court of Appeal has been asked to evaluate how judges should direct juries in criminal cases brought against protesters, following the acquittal of four protestors who pulled down the statue of Bristol slave-trader Edward Colston. Announcing that she had referred the case this week, the attorney general, Suella Braverman QC MP, noted that the case has led to a lack of certainty around the offence of criminal damage and the right to peaceful protest. Braverman’s decision is simultaneous with the publication by thinktank Policy Exchange of a report by a former Old Bailey judge highlighting questions about the trial’s conduct. In the report, Charles Wide QC sates that the jury’s verdicts were not ‘perverse’ based on the case’s evidence. However he noted that the defences used – reasonable force to prevent crime and that conviction would have been a unreasonable interference with human rights – should not have been put in the jury’s hands.Condemning the case management of the trial, he said that all parties have a responsibility to make sure that such hearings are carried out in line with the criminal procedure rules. ‘With the state of the law as it is, or may be, the conduct of such trials is fraught with manifold difficulties.’ Reporting her referral of the case, Braverman said: ‘Trial by jury is an important guardian of liberty and critical to that are the legal directions given to the jury. It is in the public interest to clarify the points of law raised in these cases for the future. This is a legal matter which is separate from the politics of the case involved.’The attorney general’s office announced that the power to refer criminal cases has been used 19 times since 2000; the last time in December 2020 to define the law in relation to sexual assault.

From this summer, the scheme for diagnosing whiplash injuries in RTA claims is to reinstate its exclusion of remote examinations. The restriction had been deferred by MedCo during the pandemic to enable injured people to be assessed through virtual appointments instead.In light of the government’s ending of Covid-19 rules though, all examinations on or after 1 July must be in person. Executive chair of MedCoMartin Heskins, stated ‘It has always been MedCo’s policy to prohibit medical examinations by remote methods. This is stipulated in our rules, which all operational experts agree to. When this prohibition was suspended in 2020 it was made clear that the change was temporary. At a recent meeting the MedCo board unanimously agreed that the ban on remote examinations should be reinstated.’MedCo reported that a limited group of claimants may still need to isolate as a result of Covid-19. However, in situations where the claimant is vulnerable, there may be arrangements for them to have a remote examination.Experts will be obliged, if undertaking a remote examination because the claimant is vulnerable due to Covid-19, to record in their report the type of vulnerability the claimant has and why that has resulted in the examination being conducted remotely.Remote examinations were prohibited to cut the risk of fraud and to make sure that claimants with more serious injuries were not mis-diagnosed by doctors. Claimant lawyers highlighted concerns during the pandemic regarding the potential for insurers to challenge medical reports as examinations were not conducted in person.Representatives of the defendant and claimant sectors make up the MedCo board, as well as the British Medical Association and Law Society.

In the week following the introduction of reforms designed to make the separation process less acrimonious – HM Courts & Tribunals Service has noted a 50% rise on the weekly average, having received 3,000 divorce applications in the week alone.Last Wednesday, a system that introduced provisions under the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act came into action, meaning it is no longer necessary for divorcing couples to assign blame for the breakdown of their marriage.Official statistics reveal that last year, a total of 107,724 divorce petitions were made – which amounts to 2,071 applications per week.On application costs, attendees were informed that applicants do not have to pay the £593 fee twice if they are unable to progress with a joint application and thereupon have to submit a single application. When asked about joint applicants hoping to split payment, HMCTS confirmed that the system can only accept one payment in full.A partner at London firm Fletcher Day, Julius Brookman, commented: ‘The introduction of no-fault divorce has led to a run of enquiries at this firm and something of a collective sigh of relief. I had a petition we had to file urgently where the parties were deeply involved in disputing particulars and they now wish to file a new petition which takes out their major initial grudges and gripes. Likewise, I have had existing clients saying they would like to file now so that they do not have to spend time haggling over apparently anodyne parts of the petition. The new terminology from the courts also offers some clarity to parties who has previously been perplexed by the old use of words.’HMCTS reported that practitioners who may experience error messages whilst using the portal should contact the courts and tribunals service centre at [email protected] or call 0300 303 0642. A webchat service is also available.A spokesperson stated: ‘Our new digital system is designed to be robust and create a better experience for users. It has been running smoothly since it launched on 6 April.’