Opinion

The recent high profile case of Tylicki v Gibbons in the English High Court reiterates that professional sportspersons can successfully sue their fellow competitors for negligence, writes Ahmed Khogali. The core issue of the legal dispute concerned a “duty of care” in sport. The case exa

The Scottish legal system can be a mystery to English lawyers and there are plenty aspects of Scots law which are (understandably) entirely alien to our friends south of the border. One area of practice on which Scots and English lawyers can agree is the principles applicable to the interpretation o

The law commissions of England, Scotland and Wales have produced a joint report setting out their recommendations for a regulatory framework concerning automated vehicles. If the idea of vehicles capable of driving themselves dominating the local high street seems at present somewhat futuristic, sof

The perverse jury can be a fair fickle beast. The acquital of four defendants who quite clearly broke the law when they pulled down the statue of Edward Colston is a case in point. Manifestly, it was wantonly remiss of Bristol's Labour Council and Mayor to risk leaving the said effigy of the reprehe

To those of us who dealt daily with the law of prejudice to criminal court proceedings, the claim by the Metropolitan Police force that the publication of the Sue Gray Report might prejudice their criminal inquiry into alleged breaches of the Covid Regulations is surprising, to say the least. The pr

"A veritable maze" was how Professors Gretton and Reid described the enforcement provisions of standard securities. It is for that reason that the Scottish Law Commission's (SLC) discussion paper on the reform of the law of heritable securities is a very welcome publication, writes Andrew Scott

On 22 December the Scottish government ushered in a reform of the legal services market that has been sitting on the statute books for more than a decade, when it authorised the Law Society of Scotland to begin acting as an approved regulator under the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010. This change

Copycat branding is nothing new; we regularly see it happening where a store sells an own-brand product (usually for a lower price) that very closely resembles a name-brand product. So, where should we draw the line between harmless lookalike and detrimental copycat? Last year, high-end gin company

What could have been done better in response to the Covid-19 pandemic? Has any aspect of the response broken Scots criminal law? Are there any circumstances in which compensation should be paid to those who have suffered the disease or to relatives of those who have passed because of it? Though

The gambling industry awaits the outcome of an imminent white paper which is sure to deal operators a fresh deck of cards which may not all be to their liking, writes Audrey Ferrie. The existing Gambling Act 2005 came into force in 2007 but it is widely recognised that current legislation needs a re

Ruaidhrí Groom, solicitor at Northern Ireland law firm Cleaver Fulton Rankin, reviews a recent case where the Good Law Project and EveryDoctor challenged the allocation of several PPE contracts to businesses on the UK government’s 'VIP lane'. Due to the impact the Covid-19 pandemic had

Clyde & Co recently successfully defended a claim in the All Sheriff Scotland Court against a dissolved company from a pursuer who had previously made a successful claim against another party, writes David Tait. The second action related to a former employer of the pursuer for whom the insurance

Kirsty Stewart and Hannah Smethurst look at the IP issues surrounding a book compiled during the production of Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade Dune film. The epic was to feature artwork by H.R. Giger, a soundtrack from Pink Floyd and a cameo appearance from none other than Salvador Dalí –

Justice Secretary Keith Brown’s wish to find “credible and consistent” alternatives to a custodial sentence is laudable. That said, finding these is not an easy task, nor can it be done without substantial and long-term investment – something which many governments do not esp

Few outside the legal profession will realise the role that lawyers play in society and the extent to which our work is dictated by the actions of Parliament. I had not been aware of just how close that connection was until taking up my post around four years ago as head of our survivors team. The t