Understand Your Rights. Solve Your Legal Problems
With tensions rising in the US following the death of George Floyd and protests now occurring in the UK as well as all 50 states in America, we hear from Paula who discusses how racism is prevalent in the UK and how the legal sector is also yet to remove such prejudice from the justice system.
In 2017, the then UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, asked Labour MP David Lammy to review and report on whether our criminal justice system discriminated against black, Asian and other ethnic groups. Some readers will not be surprised to see that the report found this to be the case.
When you take into account the population as a whole, those who identify as ‘black’ only make up some 3%. Yet, we find that a black person is twice as likely to die in police custody than their white British counterparts.
At the time, the honourable MP reported, we found ourselves 20 years on from Sir William Macpherson’s report, which was produced after an inquiry was held into the mishandling of the investigation into black teenager Stephen Lawrence’s murder. This report concluded that “institutional racism” was to be found in the metropolitan police service and that there was a collective failure across other institutions, including the criminal justice system, to identify and protect vulnerable black, Asian and other ethnic groups caught up within the system.
When you take into account the population as a whole, those who identify as ‘black’ only make up some 3%. Yet, we find that a black person is twice as likely to die in police custody than their white British counterparts. This startling comparison is repeated when we look at the figures for stop and search or those who find themselves incarcerated.
Racism is an extremely difficult topic to discuss.
Race relations between the black community and our justice system have always been strained. It seems little has changed over the last 20 odd years, which is disappointing because we know that racism is learned as opposed to being an innate component of our DNA.
This begs the questions: why have we failed to learn from past lessons and why do we keep seeing such injustices consistently repeated?
Racism is an extremely difficult topic to discuss. If it isn’t an issue you are familiar with then one can understand your unease at engaging in the discussion for fear of saying something insulting or worse still, resulting in you being called racist. However, it’s by having those uncomfortable discussions that you learn to explore and educate yourself on what it means to be a racist or to suffer racism.
Understanding that racism isn't simply about being called the n-word or being lynched, is an important part of understanding what racism is. Earlier last month, Amy Cooper went viral when she was filmed by Cameron Cooper (no relation) threatening to call the New York police on him. They had got into an argument because Mr Cooper, an avid birdwatcher, had asked Ms Cooper to put her dog on a leash as required by the rules. Ms Cooper said “I’m going to call the police and tell them I am being threatened by an African American…”.
Perhaps we have failed to learn the lessons that history tries so hard to teach us, because we fail to consistently take responsibility for educating ourselves and others against the pandemic that is racism.
I was relieved when this micro-aggressive form of racism was caught on film, because this is the type of uncensored racism that people of colour come into contact with all the time. Ms Cooper knew she could and felt confident enough to rely on Mr Cooper’s identity as a reason upon which the police should come to her aid. Did she realise the impact of what she was saying? I’m going to suspect so, because in making the statement, she understood how Mr Cooper was likely to feel as “an African American” being threatened with the police.
I recently represented an English gentleman whose heritage is Saudi. This gentleman was a doctor and he married a Saudi who migrated to this country shortly after their nuptials. They had a child, but sadly their marriage floundered and they eventually separated. Unfortunately, they could not agree on how much time their son should spend with each other and there was an incident where the mother and her sister assaulted my client. The police were called. My client was the only one with injuries and yet the women were believed to be the victims.
Even though the police realised that the wife’s story didn’t add up (and the charges were eventually dropped), they continued to support social services in their refusal to reunify father and son.
My client was held in the cells overnight and he was forbidden from having contact with his child. Even though the police realised that the wife’s story didn’t add up (and the charges were eventually dropped), they continued to support social services in their refusal to reunify father and son. When the matter came to court, social services wrote a damning report about the doctor and it took six months of fighting before they were forced to give him a written apology and resiled from the degrading racial stereotypes relied upon to keep father and son apart. The doctor told me that he had read about the unfairness that those of colour faced in our justice system, but he never really believed it until he experienced it himself.
Perhaps we have failed to learn the lessons that history tries so hard to teach us, because we fail to consistently take responsibility for educating ourselves and others against the pandemic that is racism.
The countless times I have suffered racism and failed to call it out, instead just shrugging my shoulders and choosing to ignore the behaviour, adds to the problem. I now wonder if I had challenged the racism and racists, would I have changed their view, or at least left those who witnessed the incident with the clear impression that the racist was in the wrong?
My opponent assumed that I could never be the Barrister, based on my looks being ‘inferior’ to what they perceived a Barrister should look like.
It is the Amy Cooper’s of this world, and not just the killers of George Floyd, who also need to challenge themselves. As lawyers, we are all part of the justice system and we certainly don’t need a report to confirm our own knowledge of the difficulties that those from ethnic communities face.
This year, I have been asked twice by white opponents at Court, whether I was a client or a social worker. My opponent assumed that I could never be the Barrister, based on my looks being ‘inferior’ to what they perceived a Barrister should look like. The Barristers who asked me that question will have and continue to, represent people of colour. And how can that client ever receive the best from such a Barrister?
We all need to challenge ourselves and take responsibility for doing so.
During a preliminary settlement approval hearing held on Thursday via video call, US District Judge James Donato refused to sign off on Facebook’s $550 million data privacy settlement with a class of Illinois users, saying that lawyers must first explain why the deal only provides 1.25% of the compensation to which class members could be entitled under the state’s biometric privacy law.
Nimesh Patel, the lead plaintiff, sued Facebook in 2015, claiming that the social media company mapped users’ faces for its “Photo Tag Suggest” function in 2011 without those users consent, while also failing to inform them about how long their data would be stored, breaching the 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).
BIPA specifies a $1,000 penalty for each negligent violation of this statute and $5,000 for each knowing violation. As the class comprises around seven million Illinois Facebook users, the penalty could been as much as $35 billion.
Judge Donado remarked on this during the hearing, asking why the greater damages amount of $5,000 was not pushed for in the settlement. As Facebook paid a $5 billion fine to the Federal Trade Commission last year to settle a claim that it had deliberately deceived its users about their ability to control their private information, Donado argued that this could be counted as sufficient evidence that they knowingly violated BIPA in this case.
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“It looks to me that what Facebook did to violate the BIPA may also have been a violation of that prior FTC consent decree, in which case you have a pretty good argument that this is an intentional or reckless violation of BIPA that would warrant $5,000,” he said. “They’re taking what is essentially a 98.75% discount off what the IL said should be the damages.”
Donato ordered lawyers on both sides to address his concerns within the next few weeks.
The economic devastation wrought upon the US economy by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting stay at home orders has severely impacted businesses of all sizes – from the “mom and pop” business to corporate behemoths in almost every sector. Even as stay-at-home orders are relaxed and businesses are allowed to reopen, it is apparent that not all businesses will be able to recover from the sometimes complete loss of income for more than two months, let alone deal with the uncertainty of the ongoing viability of certain businesses. As business owners struggle to address the fallout that will likely linger for years, many predict a wave of bankruptcy filings throughout the country.
Many companies have accepted funds from the Payroll Protection Plan (“PPP”) and are living off those funds for the time being.
Within the first three months after the shelter in place orders were enacted, that wave started to materialise, but it has been mainly the corporate giants that are seeking refuge of Chapter 11—not the small or middle market enterprises. Household names like JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, Hertz, Rent-a-Car, J. Crew, Gold’s Gym, and Frontier Communications have all filed under Chapter 11 during the pandemic. While these companies were likely all facing economic problems prior to the pandemic, they have universally cited COVID-19 as the factor that finally pushed them into bankruptcy. Although, it is unquestionable that small businesses have been hit harder, with some sources predicting that as many as 7.5 million small businesses could be permanently shuttered, there has not yet been a noticeable increase in bankruptcy filings among these small businesses.
The reluctance to file bankruptcy almost certainly involves a justifiable concern over the cost.
Bankruptcy professionals speculate that this has not happened for a number of reasons. Many companies have accepted funds from the Payroll Protection Plan (“PPP”) and are living off those funds for the time being. In addition, with many jurisdictions having moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures in place during the pandemic and access to state courts remaining limited, many businesses have no urgent reason to seek the refuge of the automatic stay. With bankruptcy usually regarded as a stop of last resort, it is not surprising that smaller businesses have held off from filing bankruptcy.
The reluctance to file bankruptcy almost certainly involves a justifiable concern over the cost. The corporate giants have access to enormous budgets (typically funded by their lenders and/or private equity backers) and with that budget can utilise an army of professionals, including lawyers, financial advisers, chief restructuring officers, liquidating agents, among others, to help clean up their balance sheets, “right size” their operations, and emerge as a viable enterprise. Chapter 11 reorganisations are notoriously expensive, and without access to a capital source, many smaller companies believe they simply cannot afford the cost of restructuring, and ultimately elect to liquidate in some form or fashion.
Specifically, the CARES Act opens the door to many thousands of businesses and individuals to allow them to take advantage of the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (SBRA), which created the “Subchapter V” bankruptcy case.
While the cost concern is certainly justifiable, small business owners should not overlook a short-term opportunity to use the bankruptcy court to restructure their balance sheets, an option that has been available to them by the enactment of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Most are familiar with the emergency - and in some cases forgivable -SBA loans to individuals and small businesses, payroll tax other related relief under the CARES Act. However, one provision which provides a potentially powerful tool to small businesses and individuals engaged in business has not gained as much attention.
Specifically, the CARES Act opens the door to many thousands of businesses and individuals to allow them to take advantage of the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (SBRA), which created the “Subchapter V” bankruptcy case. The SBRA passed in late 2019 and which took effect on 19 February 2020, is an attempt to make Chapter 11 reorganisations more efficient, streamlined, and less expensive than traditional Chapter 11 reorganisations. The concept behind the SBRA was to make Chapter 11 accessible to those companies and individuals who could restructure a salvageable enterprise were it not for the heavy administrative burden of Chapter 11. A high-level discussion of the provisions of the SBRA is discussed below.
This significant rise in the debt limit gives distressed companies an opportunity to help address the damage caused or exacerbated by the pandemic, and it should not be overlooked by professionals advising these companies.
Prior to the enactment of the CARES Act, a company or an individual engaged in commercial or business activities and had less than $2,725,625 in total non-contingent liquidated debt, including secured and unsecured claims, could elect to file under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. Under CARES, that debt limit has been raised to $7,500,000 for the next year. Cases filed after 27 March 2021 will be subject to the $2,725,625 debt limit. This significant rise in the debt limit gives distressed companies an opportunity to help address the damage caused or exacerbated by the pandemic, and it should not be overlooked by professionals advising these companies.
Some of the significant benefits of Subchapter V are:
Companies and individuals that have been hard hit by the pandemic and/or were in distress independently of the virus, should give serious consideration to taking advantage of the significant benefits of the SBRA while they still can.
Companies and individuals that have been hard hit by the pandemic and/or were in distress independently of the virus, should give serious consideration to taking advantage of the significant benefits of the SBRA while they still can.
Mark Horoupian represents a wide spectrum of participants in the insolvency process, including creditors, creditors’ committees, debtors in possession, Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 trustees, and acquirers of assets from bankruptcy estates. He can be reached at mhoroupian@sulmeyerlaw.com or (213) 617-5240.
The United States’ efforts to extradite Huawei’s chief financial officer, Ms Meng Wanzhou from Canada to the US for fraud and other charges has become a particular flashpoint in these broader diplomatic hostilities.
Ms Meng has been under house arrest in Vancouver since December 2018, when she was arrested whilst transferring between aeroplanes in Vancouver airport, at the request of the US authorities. Ms Meng is the daughter of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, who is alleged to have close links with the Chinese military and communist party.
The US is seeking her extradition on the basis of allegations of fraudulently misleading HSBC and three other banks about Huawei’s links to an Iranian subsidiary. Since HSBC clears dollar transactions, the US says that the alleged misrepresentation put the bank at risk of violating US sanctions against Iran.
At a political level, Sino-Canadian relations have been severely strained by the arrest and ongoing extradition process.
On 27 May 2020, the Supreme Court of British Columbia refused Ms Meng’s attempt to have the US extradition request dismissed. The case has been followed closely in the Canadian media, being described by The New York Times as “one of the biggest legal dramas in recent Canadian memory”. In China, where Ms Meng’s plight has stirred significant resentment, the extradition attempt is often portrayed as an effort by the US to restrain the rise of Chinese technology companies.
At a political level, Sino-Canadian relations have been severely strained by the arrest and ongoing extradition process. Just days after Ms Meng’s extradition hearing was allowed to go ahead in early 2019, China arrested two Canadians on spurious espionage charges, in a move seen by many as being retaliatory.
The day before the 27 May judgment was to be delivered, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Canada must “release Ms Meng and ensure her safe return to China at an early date to avoid more damage caused to China-Canada relations.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to this unusually pointed statement by saying that "Canada has an independent judicial system that functions without interference or override by politicians” and that, “China doesn't work quite the same way and doesn't seem to understand that."
This requirement, which is known as “double criminality” was found to have been met by Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the British Columbia Supreme Court.
It is clear that China sees the ongoing extradition process as being under Canadian political control. There may, in fact, be some merit in this view, despite Mr Trudeau’s protests, since the Canadian Minister for Justice may intervene in extradition cases. Ms Meng’s lawyers implored the Minister to do just that last year, saying that the case was “palpably” being “brought for political purposes as opposed to legitimate criminal law enforcement reasons.” The lawyers went on to say that “The factual and legal underpinnings for Ms Meng’s extradition are without precedent in Canadian law”, arguing that there were no violations of Canadian law and that allegations related to other jurisdictions.
The 27 May ruling represented a major setback for such arguments against Ms Meng’s extradition to the US, given the court’s finding that prosecutors had satisfied an important legal requirement for her extradition from Canada, namely that the offences for which a person is being extradited are also offences in Canada. This requirement, which is known as “double criminality” was found to have been met by Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the British Columbia Supreme Court.
Despite this adverse ruling, Ms Wanzhou’s legal team say they remain confident of her eventual vindication and argue that their client should "not be a pawn or a hostage" in the wider China-US relationship.
In her judgment, Ms Justice Holmes said that "Canada's law of fraud looks beyond international boundaries," while also noting that "Ms Meng's approach to the double criminality analysis would seriously limit Canada's ability to fulfil its international obligations in the extradition context for fraud and other economic crimes."
Despite this adverse ruling, Ms Wanzhou’s legal team say they remain confident of her eventual vindication and argue that their client should "not be a pawn or a hostage" in the wider China-US relationship.
The Supreme Court of British Columbia is yet to hold hearings into additional matters, including whether there is sufficient evidence against Ms Meng to warrant extradition and whether her rights were properly respected at the time of her arrest. The Canadian Ministry of Justice also plays the role of a wildcard in proceedings, since it is entitled to decide whether Ms Meng extradition would be contrary to Canadian values, in which case it may block her extradition. However, the comments from the Canadian government thus far suggest that this is an unlikely outcome.
Canadian Criminal lawyer Gary Botting, a leading expert on Canadian extradition law, has called described Meng's extradition case as a, "political type of enterprise that the United States is engaged in."
The bottom line in these proceedings is that the US is the only jurisdiction in the world which can extradite someone merely on the basis of there being a technical dollar transfer through the states, since all dollar transactions go through New York. Therefore, even with no meaningful link to the US, there can be extradition proceedings just on that basis alone. Canadian Criminal lawyer Gary Botting, a leading expert on Canadian extradition law, has called described Meng's extradition case as a, "political type of enterprise that the United States is engaged in."
On February 13, 2020 - after the extradition proceedings started, and seven years after her arrest – Ms Meng was indicted by the US authorities on charges of trade secrets theft. These carry potential penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment.
The US Department of Justice has justified these new charges, saying that “Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated US technology were successful” and that “Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage.”
In February, President Trump was reportedly “apoplectic” at the decision of the UK government to allow Huawei to play a role in developing the UK’s 5G infrastructure.
To many, these latest charges appear to be tacked on by prosecutors, in order to give more substance to the indictment than was suggested by the more tenuous original charges.
The Chinese government is furious with the United States’ actions in this case. Nor will the UK be immune from the fallout of this case, and the wider deterioration in US-China relations. In February, President Trump was reportedly “apoplectic” at the decision of the UK government to allow Huawei to play a role in developing the UK’s 5G infrastructure.
That proposed involvement now once again hangs in the balance, after fallout from the coronavirus pandemic caused a number of sceptical Conservative backbenchers to put increased pressure on the government. It is now reported that this backbench pressure has produced a government commitment to reduce Huawei’s involvement in the UK 5G network to zero by 2023. More broadly, many analysts are now predicting a dramatic cooling of relations between the West and China, not least given concerns about China’s transparency surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, civil rights issues in Hong Kong and reports about China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim population.
Whatever about these wider issues, the US will not occupy the moral high ground if it is not seen to scrupulously follow the rule of law itself, in both letter and spirit. In that broader context, it is unfortunate that the aggressive US approach to Ms Meng’s extradition from Canada has caused many to conclude that the US is effectively using Canada’s legal processes for wider political purposes.
Bambos Tsiattalou is the Founding Partner of Stokoe Partnership Solicitors and specialises in cases involving money laundering, fraud, confiscation, civil recovery and extradition matters.
Image Credit: Oleksandr Siedov
Dorsey & Whitney announced this week that it will end its Minneapolis City Attorney’s programme in response to the death of George Floyd in MPD custody.
The programme, which has been in place since 1978, saw the 500-lawyer firm lending its staff to assist the Minneapolis City Attorney’s office in the prosecution of misdemeanour cases.
Citing studies demonstrating that misdemeanours disproportionately affect African Americans, the firm said that it came to the decision to end its involvement with City prosecutors. “We must be part of the solution, and that means concrete action to assist the community and a re-examining of our own programs and practices,” managing partner Bill Stoeri said in a statement.
“Dorsey & Whitney shares the sadness and the outrage expressed throughout Minnesota and the world over George Floyd’s killing, as well as over the long history of such injustice.”
The firm also announced its intention to refocus on pro bono work, looking to provide legal services to communities affected by the current civil unrest in the US. Dorsey & Whitney will also make steps towards ending issues of diversity and inclusivity in the legal industry.
Responding to the news that Dorsey & Whitney was terminating the partnership, Minneapolis City Attorney Erik Nillson said that the firm’s move was “an unfortunate decision, but one that I respect.”
“The partnership proved beneficial to both the Dorsey law firm and the Minneapolis City Attorney’s Office for more than 40 years,” he said.
Simon Fisher, Partner in the family law team at Gardner Leader LLP solicitors, offers his thoughts to Lawyer Monthly on the changes he expects COVID-19 to bring to family law.
Law firms like Gardner Leader LLP have had to swiftly adapt to a new normal way of working, operating remotely to support clients using progressive technology like video conferencing. Gardner Leader also introduced a secure and confidential app where clients can communication with solicitors remotely.
Despite firms having to close their offices to visitors in line with the government guidance, divorce solicitors up and down the country – including Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia – predicted a surge in divorce enquiries caused by the pressures of self-imposed confinement.
This surge appears to have occurred sooner than imagined. Searches for 'I want a divorce' remain popular, with some firms claiming to see a 154% increase in Google searches and a 40% increase in divorce enquiries immediately after lockdown.
Wealthy individuals using the opportunity of a lowered asset base to get a more advantageous divorce before the economy bounces back, and the pressure of quarantine and financial uncertainty, are among the reasons given by solicitors for enquiries increasing during this period.
Searches for 'I want a divorce' remain popular, with some firms claiming to see a 154% increase in Google searches and a 40% increase in divorce enquiries immediately after lockdown.
These figures suggest that for those in a struggling relationship – where there’s no way back – lockdown has not restricted couples from taking the first steps in the divorce process. Furthermore, as lockdown restrictions begin to ease, we too have seen enquiries at Gardner Leader increase by 48% as the UK follows suit with other parts of the world such as Shenzhen, China. With the pandemic ebbing, in April around 3,500 divorces were reported in Shenzhen, accounting for around 84% of marriage registrations, compared to a previously yearly average of around 30%.
As the UK continues to ease out of lockdown, UK law firms are bracing for another wave in divorce enquiries.
Where lockdown has had its most damaging impact is to those in abusive relationships. According to the WHO, reports of domestic violence in Europe rose by 60% in April compared to the same month last year, some attributed to the stress and anxiety of lockdown.
There are mechanisms to break lockdown restrictions for victims. The courts are open for urgent non molestation and occupation order applications (albeit via video or telephone) but as the data from the WHO shows, COVID-19 is sadly still causing incidents to increase.
Individuals can often find themselves trapped in struggling relationships but without an ability to move on. In such a difficult time, associated problems such as mental health can often come to the forefront. However, being confined with limited prospect of a resolution at this stage could have a deep effect on parties both now and in the future. The full effect is unknown but the warning signs are there.
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One positive outcome from lockdown is that it has forced parties to consider alternative options to the traditional court process to resolve their dispute. Rather than waiting for a hearing that might not take place, parties can use ADR methods such as Arbitration, Collaborative Law or private FDRs; options that were available before COVID-19 but were often wrongly treated as secondary options by lawyers and clients alike. This can no longer be the case and the inevitable use of these options is only a positive to keep disputes out of the courts and to reduce costs.
Meanwhile, court hearings have also been modernised, with the courts and judges providing guidance as to the digital filing of bundles, and the provision for future remote hearings including some precedent orders by High Court Judge of England and Wales, Mr Justice Mostyn. In fact, during the initial weeks of lockdown, video and telephone hearings including Family Dispute Resolution hearings were still taking place.
The trouble is, the swift move by some courts to commendably adapt to a new remote way of life has left a slight confused and inconsistent family court system, with various family court locations around the UK adopting contrasting approaches. Some hearings are taking place on paper, some by telephone or video and some proceedings are just generally being adjourned. This depends on the location, staffing and availability of the Judiciary, among other factors.
Often, hearings taking place are organised by the court the day before or morning of the hearing by different remote means. This causes uncertainty for family law practitioners and clients alike, particularly as family lawyers cannot give a clear answer if the hearing will proceed or not. This likely won't get any better in the future once lockdown is lifted; the courts will likely be backlogged with hearings, with lawyers wondering how or when these matters will be listed.
Often, hearings taking place are organised by the court the day before or morning of the hearing by different remote means.
Then there’s the digitalisation of courts. While recent steps were underway with digitalisation of online divorce and financial orders, the family courts have often been reluctant to use remote hearings – despite being used successfully in civil hearings for many years.
The COVID-19 lockdown has bought the use of remote hearings to the forefront. Not all hearings have taken place as scheduled, and some like final hearings need parties in attendance. However, there have been a number of successful video and remote hearings showing that this is something that could be implemented to save legal and court costs and time.
Let’s hope this is the case, so at least we can say one key positive change has emerged from the disruption and turmoil inflicted on the family legal system by COVID-19.
These injuries include occupational sickness, broken bones, psychological injuries, and worsening of pre-existing illnesses.
As a result of these injuries, you are required to adjust your lifestyle, which can be quite overwhelming. Furthermore, you have to deal with the enormous medical expenses that threaten to throw your life into disarray. If you find yourself in such a situation, here are five reasons to hire a personal injury lawyer to help you get suitable compensation for the injuries sustained at the workplace.
A personal injury lawyer will be your advocate as you negotiate with insurance companies and your employer. During these negotiations, employers will be trying to rid themselves of any liability, whereas the insurance company tries to pay as little compensation possible to protect their profit margins. Fortunately, an experienced injury lawyer will make sure to best represent your interest and get the best deal possible.
Furthermore, their knowledge of the current laws on employee compensation helps them make sure your rights are not violated.
Injury attorneys have specialised in injury cases and boast immense experience handling cases that are identical to yours. They are knowledgeable about the law, and have the most useful information, and ways of building a strong case. They also know what the procedures to follow, paperwork filing procedures, as well as legal matters such as the statute of limitations. Therefore, with their help, you can ensure you are not denied your entitled compensation due to any technicality or paperwork mistakes.
Injury attorneys have specialised in injury cases and boast immense experience handling cases that are identical to yours.
Plaintiffs who hire injury attorneys to represent them get higher injury compensation compared to those who opted to represent themselves. Therefore, it would be best if you hired an injury lawyer to negotiate a suitable compensation offer on your behalf. This is especially important because the employers usually present an offer lower than what they would pay if they made ongoing payments.
However, this is not the case if a personal injury lawyer represents you. This is because they weigh your case and establish your medical bills plus the associated wage losses. In addition to this, they also help establish the right payment for less quantifiable things such as general damages, pain and suffering, stress, physical discomfort, and the injury’s impact on your life. They then use this total cost when at the negotiation table to determine the best compensation for all your troubles.
Employers are notorious for not offering worthy compensation for an injury sustained at the workplace. This is something you need not worry about if you hire a skilled attorney.
Getting an injury can be very traumatic since you have to deal not only with the physical pain but also mental and emotional distress. It may be due to the mounting medical expenses and loss of wage as your employer deems you unproductive. This might be worse, especially if you suffered a permanent disability.
In such cases, you are eligible for a single lump-sum payment or weekly payments as compensation for lost wages. Nevertheless, this is not always the case since insurance firms deem this to be very costly. They thus do anything possible to make sure you do not get a fair compensation offer.
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In such scenarios, you should hire an injury lawyer who will act on your behalf during these negotiation settlements. Therefore, you get to focus on the most important thing, which is getting better and try living a normal life.
If you sustain an injury in the workplace, this is not your fault but that of your employer for not ensuring a safe and healthy working environment for the workers. However, some employees do not take it kindly when you decide to file for workers’ compensation claims. They instead retaliate by demoting you, lowering your salary, reducing your hours, or firing you altogether.
This unlawful and unfair treatment should never be allowed in the workplace, and if you find yourself in this position, then hiring a lawyer is the way forward. The attorney will use his expertise and experience practicing law in making sure you get fair and just compensation. This will not only be for the injury but also for the harassment suffered for filing for the workers’ compensation claim.
Getting an injury is unfortunate, and gets worse, especially if it happens while in your workplace. If this happens to you, then it is the best to hire an attorney if the employer’s actions or hired insurance company prove to be unjust and uncooperative. The lawyer will make sure your complaint is not taken for granted, and you get paid a fair amount for all the pain and suffering endured.
Jérôme Herbet, Partner at Winston & Strawn, explores the history of EU rulings on crypto-assets and what these might portend for the future.
In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic and world lockdown, the Libra Association published a new version of the white paper supporting its Libra crypto-currency. Initially founded and supported by Facebook, Inc., and then endorsed by a number of large companies (which since inception seem to have backed away from the project), the Geneva-based Libra Association is home of a new “stable coin,” i.e., a cryptocurrency designed to be backed by a reserve of hard currencies (fiat) in an effort to stabilise the price of the “coin” by linking its value to that of its reserve.
Although the Libra Association had asked the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) for an assessment on how the authority would classify the project (including the issuance of a “stable coin”) and guidelines were issued on 11 September 2019, other regulators and governments around the world voiced out a number of concerns about the project. The revised version of the Libra white paper contains a number of changes made to address such regulatory concerns.
Stable coins that include a reference to one or several existing legal currencies, such as Libra, pose specific issues, which were summarised in detail in the G7 Working Group report on stable coins published in October 2019 and resulted in a ban in the EU. On December 5, 2010, the EU Council and Commission jointly stated that no global "stablecoin" arrangement should begin operation in the European Union until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks have been adequately identified and addressed.
The revised version of the Libra white paper contains a number of changes made to address such regulatory concerns.
Until recently, the regulation of crypto-assets was primarily left to national initiatives, with States adopting diverging approaches. However, a fundamental distinction seemed to emerge between crypto currencies on the one hand and tokens on the other hand. As summarised by the EU Parliament in its April 2020 study on crypto-assets:
“Cryptocurrencies (or coins), such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, are those crypto-assets that are designed or intended to perform the roles of currency, i.e.to function as a general-purpose medium of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account. They are intended to constitute a peer-to-peer alternative to government-issued legal tender. Tokens, on the other hand, are those crypto-assets that offer their holders certain economic and/or governance and/or utility/consumption rights. Broadly speaking, they are digital representations of interests, or rights to (access) certain assets, products or services. Tokens are typically issued on an existing platform or blockchain to raise capital for new entrepreneurial projects, or to fund start-ups or the development of new (technologically) innovative services.”
In a number of jurisdictions around the world, the emergence of crypto-assets gave rise to specific legislative and regulatory responses aimed at addressing the most urgent issues raised by their development, albeit sometimes only partially given the difficulty to proceed with their legal qualification. In fact, all crypto-assets have different functionalities, and their inclusion within the existing regulatory framework requires a case-by-case analysis. This approach is clearly the one retained, for example, by the Swiss FINMA in its ICO guidelines published in February 2018 or the UK FSA, for whom “whether an ICO falls within the FCA’s regulatory boundaries or not can only be decided case by case. Many ICOs will fall outside the regulated space. However, depending on how they are structured, some ICOs may involve regulated investments and firms involved in an ICO may be conducting regulated activities”.
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Most of the legislative and regulatory work so far thus focused on investor protection in the context of ICOs and, to a lesser extent, money-laundering issues. For example, in France, the PACTE (Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation) law was adopted in April 2019 and established a legal framework for fundraising via the issuance of virtual tokens (ICOs) and digital asset service providers (“DASPs”). In the United States, the approach was rather to focus on substance over form with the consequence that US securities laws will be applicable for most ICOs. As stated by the SEC Chairman in a December 2017 statement, “replacing a traditional corporate interest recorded in a central ledger with an enterprise interest recorded through a blockchain entry on a distributed ledger may change the form of the transaction, but it does not change the substance”. Based on this approach, the SEC initiated several enforcement actions against ICO issuers that had failed to register their offering in accordance with US securities laws.
To address the more general issues raised by crypto-assets in the EU, on 19 December 2019, the European Commission launched a public consultation into a Directive/Regulation establishing a European framework for markets in crypto-assets.
The introduction to the consultation notes that crypto-assets have “the potential to bring significant benefits to both market participants and consumers” but also acknowledges the potential difficulties presented, including the challenge to financial stability that arises from the emergence of “stablecoins” as a new subset of crypto-assets.
The consultation builds on advice obtained from the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority on the applicability and suitability of the existing financial services regulatory framework to crypto-assets and will inform the Commission services’ ongoing work on crypto-assets. The consultation document notes that this includes a possible common regulatory approach at EU-level for crypto-assets that are not currently covered by EU legislation.
The consultation document is a working document and does not constitute a formal proposal by the European Commission. However, the consultation document provides a useful indication of the main areas of focus for the Commission and areas identified for potential regulatory reform:
The consultation document is a working document and does not constitute a formal proposal by the European Commission.
Concurrently, the implementation in the EU in the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (“AMLD”) contains a number of changes which will further impact crypto-asset professionals. The amendments to the previous iteration of the AMLD include:
The prospect of forthcoming changes to money laundering rules has caused a number of crypto firms to reconsider their operations. For example, crypto payments start-up Bottle Pay shut down its operations in December 2019, in anticipation of the entry into force of the revised version of the AMLD. Similarly, crypto mining pool Simplecoin and bitcoin gaming platform Chopcoin were reported to have closed their operations in December 2019, citing the new rules as the catalyst for closure.
On 24 March, a day after lockdown came into force, The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, issued fresh guidance to provide clarity and certainty on contact arrangements for separated families during the lockdown period. Lindsay Yateman and Naomi Lelliott, specialist divorce and family lawyers at Excello Law, analyse this guidance and how it has impacted families.
The key point in the guidance states: “Where parents do not live in the same household, children under 18 can be moved between their parents’ homes.” This is an exception to the government’s previous “Stay at Home” requirement in relation to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Stay at Home Rules stated that: it is no longer permitted for a person (include children) to be outside their home for any purpose other than essential shopping, daily exercise, medical need or attending essential work.
Although the government’s headline message has since been revised to a more nuanced “Stay Alert”, and there is now greater freedom to leave the house for work or some leisure activities, the accompanying Public Health advice remains largely unchanged in terms of social distancing.
Sir Andrew McFarlane’s guidance still remains valid: children can move between homes where it is safe to do so, having consideration for the latest Public Health rules and guidance. The decision of whether or not a child can move rests with that child’s parents, having sensible regard to the circumstances, including the child’s health, the risk of infection and whether any recognised vulnerable individuals live in either household.
Sir Andrew McFarlane’s guidance still remains valid: children can move between homes where it is safe to do so, having consideration for the latest Public Health rules and guidance.
The guidance makes it clear that responsibility for deciding where a child should be, and for how long, lies with the parents and not the court. Ideally, what is in the child’s best interest should always be the overriding consideration. But in practical terms, it is inevitable that problems may arise in some situations, particularly where there is a history of pre-existing parental conflict.
In circumstances where a parent is concerned about their child being moved so that it threatens to contravene current Public Health advice, the parent can exercise parental responsibility and vary any arrangement to one that is considered safe.
This may bring into question the validity and appropriateness of a Child Arrangement Order that has been decided by a court determining where a child will live, who that child can spend time with and for how long.
In the current context, if a parent is prevented from seeing a child for an unreasonable period of time and feel that this is unjustified, they may consider making a Child Arrangements Application to the court in order to regulate the time.
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Self-isolation periods are also covered by the guidelines. Should the parent with whom the child lives say that the child is exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, the self-isolation period should be observed, but following that the child would then be free to see the other parent. During the self-isolation period, the parent with whom the child lives with should allow other forms of indirect contact: regular Facetime, telephone calls or Skype.
As the lockdown gradually begins to ease, it remains an extremely difficult time for everyone. In this context, the paramount concern for both parents must be the safety and welfare of the child and those around them. In the words of Sr Andrew Macfarlane is his guidance: “The country is in the middle of a Public Health crisis on an unprecedented scale. The expectation must be that parents will care for children by acting sensibly and safely when making decisions regarding the arrangements for their child and deciding where and with whom their child spends time.”
After years of overpromising and underdelivering, digital transformation has finally started producing results. Businesses across multiple industries are now accelerating growth through the creation of digital services as additions to traditional customer service channels. What’s more, large numbers of agile start-ups are disrupting the financial services and retail industries with innovative data-driven applications.
The impact of these new services has been a change in mentality. We now expect businesses to prioritise digital, and younger consumers in particular are disappointed by anything other than that. While digital services allow for instant gratification, they also make us more vulnerable to fraud. Among the industries most at risk is the legal sector, with law firms seen as lucrative targets as a result of the large volumes of sensitive information in their possession. Online channels present cybercriminals with countless new entry points for cyberattacks – with 91% of law firms falling victim to email spoofing to send spam, phishing and other fraudulent emails last year, clearly, they are not immune to cybercrime. There are various steps they can take to protect themselves, discussed below by Caroline Hermon, Head of Fraud Solutions at SAS UK & Ireland.
In the early months of 2020, we have seen a boom in digital services, while the traditional physical economy has slowed to a crawl. To stay in business, many companies are being forced to move services online faster than they had planned. In the rush to get these new digital services to market, there’s a significant risk that development teams will make mistakes and overlook the usual security checks. Unfortunately, the likely result is that fraudsters will have a field day as they find and exploit these new gaps in their victims’ armour.
To stay in business, many companies are being forced to move services online faster than they had planned.
In a highly dynamic environment where fraudsters are discovering new attack vectors every day, it’s critical for fraud prevention teams to be able to detect threats and respond quickly. Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) approaches can help by spotting patterns in previous fraud cases and using them to detect suspicious behaviour by customers, employees or systems.
AI and machine learning are vast and highly technical fields, and it can be difficult for fraud teams to choose the best way to start their adoption journey. Nevertheless, banks and other organisations are putting a variety of interesting AI/ML-powered anti-fraud solutions into production. For example:
Digital banks such as Monzo are using smartphone cameras with facial recognition technology to prevent unauthorised users from gaining access to customers’ accounts via their mobile apps. Today’s powerful facial recognition solutions are built using machine learning models that can tell the difference between a customer’s face and a photo or mask. They can even detect when a person is sleeping or unaware that the camera is being used, potentially making them a much more powerful access control measure than traditional password-based login methods.
Banks are also using image recognition to streamline processes such as paying in cheques, where customers simply take a photo of the cheque and upload it via their banking app. Banks already use machine learning models to identify whether the image is a genuine cheque and extract the key information from it. It will be a natural progression to analyse signatures and detect more types of potential cheque fraud.
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Natural language processing and text analytics can help companies handle larger volumes of internal and external communications – such as phone calls, emails, SMS and instant messenger/chatbot interactions – while still maintaining robust anti-fraud measures. For example, in a banking context, many institutions already record the phone calls of their traders and other employees to provide evidence in cases of insider trading and other financial crimes. By using natural language processing techniques, organisations can automatically transcribe these audio files into text. Then AI/ML models can recognise relevant keywords and topics, analyse tone and sentiment, and raise alerts to the fraud team when suspicious behaviour rises above a given threshold.
False positives are the bane of fraud investigators’ existence, diverting expert resources away from the true criminals and alienating innocent customers and employees. You can use AI/ML techniques to build models that can analyse previous cases and separate out the behaviour patterns that are truly suspicious from the purely superficial anomalies.
Many current fraud detection systems use a defined set of business rules to assess the likelihood that a given case requires investigation. You can use AI/ML models to supplement and test these rule sets. This provides insight into the relationship and relative predictive power of each rule and even suggests new rules that can be added to increase the accuracy of the results.
One of the most powerful tools in an investigator’s toolkit is network analysis, which provides tools to visualise and understand the relationships between the people, places and events surrounding a case under investigation. Just like human investigators, AI/ML models can be trained to interpret these complex networks, and can often identify patterns and relationships that traditional approaches might miss.
One of the most powerful tools in an investigator’s toolkit is network analysis.
The move towards providing digital services for customers and remote working capabilities for employees poses new problems for network security teams, who can no longer count on all sensitive activity taking place behind the corporate firewall. However, you can also use AI/ML solutions to process vast quantities of network logs and identify suspicious events at a speed and scale far beyond the capabilities of human network administrators.
Ultimately, the threat of fraud within the legal sector has potential for serious reputational and financial fallout, highlighting the need for pre-emptive fraud defences. Open source coding tends to be the starting point for many organisations in their AI journey, and works perfectly well for small-scale initiatives. But enterprise-grade deployments are highly complex and call for a much more robust approach, plus scaling with open source can be difficult. Among the factors to consider is the need for governance to ensure information is used for its intended purposes, as well as ongoing model testing and monitoring to ensure accuracy and avoid bias. Here, taking a centralised approach is a good way to go. By this, we mean putting an analytics platform in place which supports not just traditional statistical methods, but also newer AI/ML-enabled techniques.
